


The Unchartable Truth

by Sophia_Bee



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: 18th Century, Alternate Universe - Historical, An Unexpected Journey, Angst, Boats and Ships, Boys In Love, Charles is a sweetheart, Erik has Issues, Explicit Sexual Content, Falling In Love, Golden Age of Piracy, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, Love, M/M, Ocean, POV First Person, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pirates, Reconciliation, Slavery, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-10 17:10:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 40,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4400324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sophia_Bee/pseuds/Sophia_Bee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day Erik plunges into the sea because he has nothing left after the death of his father is the day he's rescued, pulled from the water by Charles Xavier. Charles brings Erik, the poor son of a ship builder, to live in his house, where they become more than friends but less than brothers. Ten years later, Erik's growing feelings for Charles send him running to the sea aboard the Mystique, the very ship that had crushed his father to death a decade before. He returns to Ipswich and Charles hoping that his feelings can be contained and discovers that they cannot. A journey of pain and self discovery begins, all set in homophobic 18th century maritime culture. While the people around him might kill him if they knew that Erik longs for the love of another man, his greatest enemy might be himself. </p><p>Alternate summary: Hot Gay Pirate Sex. With plot. Lots of plot. And hopefully some character development.</p><p><a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/4420649">Cover art by avictorinagirl</a>. Amazing. Thank you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This came from my perhaps odd love of maritime music and sea chanties. The life of a sailor in the 18th century was hard. The captains were cruel, the work was endless and they faced death on a regular basis. Out of this came songs filled with passion, sung about death and the very real ways life was celebrated. You haven't lived until you've been bully down on shinbone in the alley. To be a gay man in that time, to long for love and companionship, must have been deeply challenging because to be discovered could mean punishment or death in the most horrible ways. 
> 
> Thanks to **Leafeylocket**. She has held my hand through this. I clearly need quite a bit of hand holding and no one does it better than her. 
> 
> I also apologize to those who avoid first person. It's first person. And more. Oh my. 
> 
> xoxo S.B.

When Erik Lehnsherr was ten years old, and two weeks after his father was crushed to death, he stepped off the edge of a cliff and plummeted sixty feet into the sea. He felt the wind blow through his hair as he fell towards the water below, and for the first time in his life he felt free. It was this or the workhouse, no other options for the orphaned son of a dead shipbuilder, yet another life lost in the name of the ships that fill Ipswich bay carrying cargo, slaves or heading out to hunt the mighty whales across the Atlantic.

He had seen her as they rolled her towards the water. He had watched, proud that his papa had been part of making her, her sides gleaming in the sun, painted a royal blue, gold accents, a beautiful carved mermaid on her bow, shining golden on the sun. He had heard the grunts and shouts as the men pushed her, their muscles straining, sweat pouring off their foreheads, yells of 'heave' rising from the crowd. His father would be tired that night and Erik knew he would have to prepare dinner as Jacob rested on the his bed in their room at the boarding house. He also knew that there would be another ship started the next day, a ship builders work never ending, the call of the sea ever strong. Yet his father never complained. He was proud of his work.

Loud shouts caught Erik’s attention as he watched the masts of the tall ship move forward. They weren’t the shouts of men pushing the latest ship into the sea. They were shouts of horror, cries for help. Erik looked down and realized that one of the men had been trapped under the rollers. Then he realized it was his father. That was the day Erik lost everything.

His body slices through the sea's surface and he feels the arms of his shirt blouse out from the water, the same shirt his father had mended over and over by the light of a single candle as he told Erik stories of his mother, a smile on his face, his eyes soft with the love he held for her years after her death. Erik never knew his mother. She’d died of fever when he was very young, before Jacob brought him across the channel from Germany to England, to Ipswich, where they would make their home.

Erik does not feel afraid. He should but he only feels peace. He is going to see his father. He opens his eyes, stares into the murky depth, not caring that they sting from the salt, opens his mouth and lets the water rush in, and his last thought I'd to tell his papa that he is coming. They will be together again soon.

He closes his eyes.

He lets go.

When arms close around Erik he jerks in surprise. His hands come up and grasp at those arms, trying to pull them off and he tries to yell out “no”, to tell this rescuer to let him go. There is nothing left. The arms do not let him go. They hold him, their grip strong and slowly Erik feels himself being pulled towards the surface, towards the sun that shone through the waters, and all he can think is, _I’m sorry papa_.

Erik finds himself being pulled onto the warm sand of the beach. He sputters and coughs as his body works to expel the water he’d swallowed, and after what feels like a long time he opens his eyes to see a face hovering above his. A boy. Erik blinks and his eyes sting.

“You tried to kill yourself.” The boy says matter of factly. His voice is posh and upper crust, not the accent of someone who works in the yards. Erik blinks again, his eyes watering, then he coughs some more. After even more coughing, he finally finds his voice.

“You should have let me.” Erik says, staring up at the stranger. He looks half Erik’s age, but cannot be because he was strong enough to pull Erik back to the shore. His face is tanned from the sun, his hair chestnut with strands of red that glint in the sun, there are freckles scattered across his nose and his eyes are blue and squinting curiously down at Erik, as if he's some rare specimen.

“No, my friend.” the boy says and he smiles, and it’s both kindly and sad. “I should not have let you drown.”

Erik turns his face away as he feels tears start to well up. The boy doesn’t know. He can’t know what lies ahead. There is no future for him.

“My father.” Erik gasps out, staring out across the deceptively calm sea, “He’s dead. ”

The boy rocks back on his heels and continues to stare down at Erik. They sit like that for a long time, the sun beating down on the both of them, Erik breathing in and out, cursing this stranger, cursing his failure. Finally the boy rocks forward onto his knees again and grabs Erik’s hand.

“If that is so then you shall come home with me.” he says quickly with an easy smile as he grips Erik’s hand tightly, “You are not alone. You will never be alone again.”

 

**10 years later**

 

Charles sits at the desk in his room, the curtains moving lightly in the breeze that blows off Ipswich harbor. He inhales deeply, taking in the smells of the sea, closing his eyes to savor the feel of the cool breeze. He leans down to look through the glass that sits on his desk again, staring intently at the object below, a small creature he’d plucked from a tide pool just days ago and was sure he’d never seen before. Maybe this is the discovery he's been seeking. He lifts his quill and scratches some notes on a piece of paper that lies next to the object of his studies, then leans down again, his brow furrowing, his lashes brushing against the glass as he examines it further.

The sounds of Ipswich drift up from the streets; the clanging of a bell, the far off yelling on the docks, the patter of footsteps as a boy runs up the cobblestone street. Charles sorts through the sounds, picking out each one, the familiar and the unfamiliar until he settles on those footsteps. Running. In the middle of the day. Charles feels a small curl of unease then he hears the boy call out something, his voice tinny in the distance. He strains to hear what the boy is yelling but he cannot make out the words. Still, the unease shifts to hope and something swells on his chest. Maybe.... The boy comes closer, feet clattering along, and finally Charles can recognize what he’s shouting.

“She’s home!”

Charles does not bother to contain the small thrill that runs through him. He smiles. She’s home. He stands up quickly from his desk and pushes the curtain aside and leans out the window.

“You!” Charles yells sharply at the fleeing figure. The boy stops and turns towards the Charles, giving him a look of consternation that says he’s annoyed to be stopped on his journey of telling the town the latest news. “She’s home?” Charles asks.

“Saw her coming into the bay, Sir. Those masts are unmistakable. She’s home sir. Six months out, two months late, but she’s home. Our boys are home and we can only hope her belly is full."

Charles can’t contain the smile that breaks across his face. The boy stands staring up at him and Charles jerks a little as he realizes that he is waiting to be dismissed.

“Go on then! Tell the world for all I care." Charles says sharply and the boy jumps at the tone of his voice then starts off running in the direction of the center of the town, calling as he goes, ‘she’s home, she’s home!’.

Charles’ heart pounds as he drops his quill on the desk, not caring that he’s leaving a blot of ink across his notes. She’s home. He rushes out the door of his bedroom and tears down the stairs.

“Master Charles!” the housekeeper gasps as Charles dashes by, “no coat?”

“She’s home, Marie!” Charles manages to say as he pushes the door of the Xavier house open and practically tumbles out onto the street. He takes off running down the hill, side-stepping the flowing waste that runs down the street. He runs past row after row of houses, skids around corners, his arms pumping, the wind in his ears. People stare after him, but that’s not unusual when it comes to the strange Master Xavier who spends all his time reading books and refuses to join his father at the shipyard to learn the business. He's used to stares and odd looks.

Charles skids rounds a corner, dodged the guts a fishmonger tosses into the street, and he can finally see the dock. There in the distance are the masts of a schooner, standing tall against the skyline, and it is indeed her. The _Mystique_. Charles takes in a deep, shaky breath and tries to slow his rapidly beating heart. It won’t be long now. He bites at his lower lip and tries to ignore the way his hands tremble.

Erik is coming home. His Erik.


	2. Erik part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erik POV

There was a time when this ship was proud. I remember when she sat gleaming in the waters of the harbor, her hull filled with cargo, her bow blessed with the blood of my father. Now she is tired, beaten, her once bright blue paint flaking, her sides battered by storms, her crew weary. She creaks and groans and complains, an old lady of the sea who had seen too many voyages, has too many takes to tell. Here I stand on her decks, the wind blowing through my hair, watching as we head towards land.

It’s been a long time since I've been home.

I look upwards into the clear blue of the sky, squinting into the brightly shining sun. He is still there, floating just beside the mast, a giant white bird swooping gracefully in the wind. The albatross. I know he has really come because of the scraps from the galley, finding our cast-offs better than the fish he can catch from the sea, but I wonder if it is not just an albatross. Perhaps it’s my father. Maybe it is his soul floating along with me, watching me and keeping me safe. Maybe he is stuck on this earth, trapped in the form of a giant bird who can never leave the _Mystique_ , tethered to her for an eternity. Tears sting my eyes. All these years later i miss him.

We are close to home.

Not long ago the crow’s nest had called down that land had been spotted, causing a cheer to rise from the crew. My heart had risen in my throat at the sound. Six months at sea almost over and I don’t know what I will return to. I do not know if I have changed anything by leaving. I do know if I have made things worse for myself. I thought I could vanquish my ghosts but they are still there, stronger than ever, haunting my dreams, and my heart aches with their weight.

The air is warm and stagnant, and the putrid smell from the slaves in the hold drifts across the deck. It had made my nose curl at first, a combination of death and excrement that one can’t forget, but after four months at sea with our cargo, I barely notice anymore. It’s just another smell of many on this boat, from the sweat of my fellow sailors to the spoiled food they serve us for meals, to the rotting body left hung off the mast by Captain Shaw.

There’s a touch on my shoulder and I startle and turn. A man stands next to me, a smile on his face, his red curls glinting in the sunshine. I smile back despite the strange melancholy I feel. That melancholy is mine and only mine. I do not share it with the world. Sometimes I barely share it with myself.

“You are bleeding again, Erik.” he says in his thick Irish accent, the concern in his voice betraying his friendly affect. I shift a little and my back stings as the thin cloth of my shirt drags across tender skin. I’m not surprised I’m not surprised to be bleeding more. It’s been three days since they flayed the skin off my back and it’s only the skills of able bodied seaman Shamus that have kept me bandaged and free of infection. The smiling Irishman with his thick brogue had assured me that his father had been a doctor, that he had spent hours by his side, helping him concoct tinctures and poultices. All the plain folk in the county had come to him. Until he got sick and could not cure himself. Shamus said his mother saw nothing left for them in Ireland and thought she could find work in the booming ports of England, doing mending or working as a maid. Shamus had ended up on his first voyage at fifteen, lying about his age to gain a place on a whaling ship. His mother had met the same fate as his father, but by then Shamus had found a life at sea and he never turned back. He is like me, without parents. Without anyone, although that’s not entirely true. I have someone. I have him.

_Charles._

“Maybe you can bandage me more later.” I say, feeling distracted, irritable, no joy at finally arriving back home. It will not be long now. I wonder if he will be there, waiting for me. Part of me hopes so. I left to get him out of my head, to cleanse myself, and all I have done is miss him. Endlessly. Part of me hopes he has forgotten and I will be greeted by no one. It will be easier that way. I ironically long for what he promised me would never happen: to finally be alone.

“You’ve a lass, Erik?” Shamus asks me. I jerk a little at the question and hope my face doesn’t show how much this question has unarmed me. No one has ever asked. Everyone accepts that the German immigrant with the stern face keeps to himself and I like it that way. Let them think that I have my reasons for not taking part in their shore shenanigans, let them think me religious or a prude. It’s easier than the truth.

“No.” I say tightly, ignoring the ache in my chest. I am staring across the water, watching as Ipswich grows larger, and I start to see the distinct outline of buildings. “No lass.”

Shamus did not ask me if I have someone. I don’t know how I would answer that. I only know what I left behind what I ran from. I glance upward and the bird is still there. Bless you, papa, I think. Thank you for watching over me. I miss you.

The sounds of a rhythmic work song starts to drift up from where the men row in the hull, and the schooner makes her way across the slowly rocking ocean, coming closer and closer to home. I close my eyes because the word home almost hurts and I don’t truly know what it means anymore. Once I did. Once I knew that I was home. With my father and then with Charles. Now I don't know.

“At least some strong ale.” Shamus says, forgetting about my wounds as he slaps me on the back. I clench my jaw and try to ignore the pain. He is a good man, Shamus. Maybe even a friend. In the least he looks up to me, tells me that I’ve done the right thing, standing up to the way the captain abuses the crew. Even if it earned me a flogging.

“At least that,” I agree. Some ale, a bit of stew, land that does not rock beneath my feet, a soft bed. I know those things wait for me. Everything else, I can only speculate. Everything else is unknown.

I will go take my turn manning to oars soon, give some poor lad barely weaned from his mother's breast a chance for a drink of water. We are so unlucky as to be heading back to the Ipswich dock in air so stagnate it almost feels as if it choke you, the kind of summer heat that makes everything shimmer. I know manning the oars will further split open the barely healing skin of my back, leaving more stripes of bright red blood on my thin muslin shirt. I have washed it out carefully every night, turning the wood basin of seawater red, hanging it to dry as I lie down on my side, careful to not roll into the tender skin of my back.

Charles will worry when he sees the gashes. If I close my eyes I can see the frown that will form between his eyes. He will tell me again there is a place for me in his father's shipyard, his voice tinged with worry. A place I will fit into better than he ever will. He will say I am family and there is no cruelty at the yards. No one will beat the skin off my back. He is wrong. There is cruelty of a different sort. The cruelty of a smile, of the innocent gaze of eyes as blue as the sea. The physical pain of a beating is nowhere near as bad as the pain lodged in my heart. A hundred floggings could not hurt this much. I would rather face the brutal indifference of the sea than the kindness of the one who holds my heart so tightly.

I squeeze my eyes shut, willing the tears not to come. My soul is a tempest greater than any the _Mystique_ has faced in the last ten years. I am battered, on the edge of breaking apart and I do not know what will be left once that happens.

I will see him. I cannot deny my heart this, to just lay eyes on him, to gaze on his face, on his arms scattered with freckles. I long to hear him laugh one more time, to catch that easy smile. I will fill myself up with his scent, maybe let my fingers brush his or allow myself to lean against him like we have so many times before, bumping into each other like schoolboys who are used to sharing space. I will cradle him in my arms as he reads to me by the fire, and he will sigh in contentment as he rests against me like any other brothers might. Then I will leave and try to push everything back into the black hole that is my heart. I will return to the sea, to her unforgiving arms, and if I am lucky she will be my grave. If not the next voyage, the one after.

I turn and walk towards the hatch that leads to down below, biting back tears with every step.. We are almost home. If I only knew what home was anymore.

 

\--

 

When we arrive in the harbor the captain orders the long boat to drop and we prepare to warp the _Mystique_ up to the dock. The entire crew comes on deck and we grip the thick line and pull the anchor chain with all our might, moving the _Mystique_ slowly towards Ipswich. Closer to the end of own journey, and part of me feels like I’m crawling out of my skin being this close yet this far away.

The docks are teeming with people, small in the distance, swarming around. They always are, filled with the comings and goings of what sometimes feels like the entire world. I remember sitting on their edge as a boy, my feet hanging over, staring down at the long drop to the water while the tide was out. In their own way the are are as much home to me as anywhere else, but even more they are always a reminder of my father. Jacob would take me to the docks, tell me endless stories; of the beasts that ruled the sea, of the sailors who would man the whalers, and how many came back broken, and even more who never returned at all. Now I am one of those sailors. I wonder if my father would be proud. I let go of a sigh, but I cannot lose the heaviness that weighs me down.

Despite my heavy my heart, I cannot help but feel lightness when as we bring the _Mystique_ slowly into the dock, hauling up the heavy anchor only to have the longboat take it out again and drop it. The deck is full of activity, men scurrying everywhere, and the air is tinged with anticipation and excitement, even a bit of joy. We have made it back. After six long months at sea there are wives and children, soft beds to sleep in, fires on the hearth. For most of the crew this is homecoming. It’s not just another port, another place to drink rum until they stumble onto shinbone, heave the contents of their stomachs then find warm bodies that welcome lonely sailors for a price. It is the end of a long journey, although for me it feels like it could be the beginning.

The _Mystique_ is fully rigged and men yell and swear as they bring down her sails, the crack of the wind that has suddenly kicked up echoing in our ears, pushing away the stagnant air. After what feels like hours of warping, we arrive, and as heavy waterlogged lines are thrown out and the workers on the dock secure them, a cheer goes up amongst the crew. All along the dock are people: fathers wanting to see their sons, wives holding rosy-cheeked babes who have grown more than imagined since the _Mystique_ set off on her voyage. I scan the crowd, half hoping and half dreading what I might see. If he is there, staring upwards, looking for me, I know my heart will leap. I long to see his eyes searching for me, his hair that falls into his face and he’s always pushing aside as he sits at his desk, reading his books into the night by the light of a single candle. How many times have I stretched out on his bed, complained that he does not seem to need sleep. How many times has he turned and smiled, chastised me for getting in the way of science and progress. I have told him that he will change the world, and I picture the sad smile that I’m always met with and how he tells me more than once that he will do nothing the sort if his father has anything to do with it.

What if he is not there. I shake my head and pick up my canvas satchel, throwing it onto my back. I cannot think about Charles not being there. No matter how much I tell myself differently, I know it will hurt. I keep looking, scanning face after face, my eyes going back and forth, and I try to ignore the disappointment that clenches tightly in my chest. This is what I wanted, is it not? To go away, to be forgotten. It’s the best for him. For me. I need to push him aside, to pretend he is not lodged in my heart to the point that the only thing I could do was leave.

I make one more pass across the crowd as I wait to disembark. My back stings. My arms ache from the weight of the anchor chain and my hands have new blisters that I know will soon break open, exposing stinging, tender skin. I stink of sweat and seawater and who knows what. I can feel my shirt starting to stick to the wounds on my back as it dries in the heat and I think that it is best this way. I will find lodging for the next few days, will not see Charles, and decide what to do next.

My eyes sting and I tell myself it is the sting of saltwater, not of tears.

I have given up when I hear something. The crowd below is noisy, full of chattering and sobs as people greet each other. Still, it floats up above the din, like a siren call, and I can hear it. My name. I cannot ignore the relief that washes over me and I scan the crowd again, my eyes darting quickly, and finally I find him. He is pushing through the crowd, his eyes fixed on me, and I can see that he was probably sitting at his desk, because he is wearing a loose shirt, the kind he tells me is comfortable and good for long periods of concentration. I know I should pretend I do not see him, should look away. Instead I smile and for a moment I am awash with warmth and something deep that I cannot give name to. It is Charles. My Charles. I cannot stop the thought before it leaks out. He is waving at me, squinting into the sunshine, his hair glinting red, and I lift my and wave back, and despite my determination for it to be otherwise, I know that I have finally arrived home. The tension and worry of the months at sea slips away and suddenly I cannot wait to see him, to take him in my arms, to hold him against me and breathe in his scent of ink and paper.

The crew crowds the walkway, jostling and pushing, and while for the most part I am content to wait my turn, now that I know that he is there, that he is waiting, and soon I will be able to study his face, to try to count those freckles without seeming too forward, I am suddenly gripped with a fierce urgency. If I could I would push through the throngs, trample those in my way, and reach him. I realize in this moment that everything I’d run from has returned and is twice as strong. My heart pounds, my palms feel clammy and suddenly it is as if my breath has been taken from me. If I had any strength I would turn and run away, disappear, leaving Charles thinking that I might be a figment of his imagination. I am not strong. I am weak, so I keep pushing, walking towards him, incremental step by step, pulled by something I do not entirely understand but cannot seem to rid myself of.

_My Charles._

I do not know where this thought comes from. It pops up unbidden, and I wince at the truth of it. He doesn’t know it, but I am his and I fear that no matter how many times I run away, this will never change. I admit something to myself that I have not allowed to even form into a full thought all these months at sea. I am filled with a reality that I can no longer deny. He is my Charles.

He is my love.

I have known him almost half my life, from the day he lept into those cold waters and pulled me to shore, those thin, strong arms wrapped around me, his eyes full of compassion and hope and his words telling me I would no longer be alone. I remember how they soothed me, calmed my soul that was in deep turmoil, and I wondered if it was my father who brought him to the shore that day, my father who whispered in his ear that it would be a nice day to explore the tidepools, to collect specimens from the beach, my father who knew I was about to try to join him in death. I like to think that Jacob is watching over me, whether in the form of Charles appearing just when I needed rescuing or the albatross that is now perched upon the bow of the _Mystique_ , watching with hungry eyes, wondering if his days of free meals were over. Not yet, giant bird of the sea. It will only be a matter of time before the _Mystique_ heads back out, intent on killing more whales, her crew barely recovered, her harpoons sharpened, and most likely I will go along with her. I cannot stay here. Not knowing what I now know.

I smell the sweat and stink of unwashed men around me. We move forward, inch by inch. I can only think of him.

We have grown up together, Charles and I, and we live in a realm where we are not entirely friends but fall short of brothers. From the day he brought me home from the shore, the salt water starting to stiffen my clothes, my lips starting to crack, telling his father that I needed a place to stay, it has been the two of us. In a way we have created our own world, and together we have our traditions, our secrets, our way of doing things. I remember how his father had glanced up coldly from behind the wide desk in his study. I had never seen a room like that before. It was twice as large as the room at the boarding house that my father and I had shared, and it seemed to have no purpose but to hold a desk, its walls lined with more book than I had ever seen. I felt small and awkward standing next to Charles, shifting my weight from foot to foot, as the scrutinizing gaze of Brian Xavier fell upon me, the man who owned the shipyard where my father had been killed not even a fortnight ago. His eyes were blue and cold and I watched a frown start to form on his lips, a look of disappointment starting to cloud his eyes. He opened his mouth but before he could speak, Charles had hurriedly added that I was the son of the man recently killed in the shipyard. My eyes had flown open in surprise and later I would find out that one of Charles’ many talents was observing the people around him, watching, and it appeared I had been one of the people he’d taken notice of.

Brain Xavier had startled a little at this information and I saw his face start to soften. It was the least he could do, Charles had said, his voice even and I noticed that it contained not a trace of pleading. Brian nodded at this then went back to scratching his quill across the paper ledger that lay on his desk. I remember how my body had almost sagged in relief and the way Charles had put his hand on my arm and smiled up at me. I should have known then, the way my heart clench and the happiness I felt at my new friend, that Charles was not just someone who had come into my life at the right time. He was my destiny.

I finally reach the gangplank leading down to the dock, and I shake my head to clear some of the memories that are plaguing me. My destiny. My Charles. I clench my hands into fists, dig my nails into my palms and tell myself what I already know; that this is not going to end well and the best decision is to refuse to even walk down to that dock. Yet my feet move forward, and I do exactly what I know is not best.

Life in the Xavier household was a far cry from my days in the boarding house with my father. Brian told Charles that he was not going to just support any random boy he dragged in from the street. I remember wanting to correct him, to tell him that I had actually been dragged in from the beach, but I had learned quickly to keep quiet around Brian. I was given a job in the household and a bed in the servant quarters. Every morning I rose in the chill before dawn, crawling out from beneath the covers I had heaped over myself the night before, and went to the main house to clean the hearths so the fires for the day could be set. It was not a hard job, but it was dirty, and by the time I was I almost always needed a wash. I started to feel that the soot under my fingernails was a permanent addition to my visage. I would then eat breakfast at the table in the small servant quarters, the cook tutting about and muttering as she planned her meals for the day. I remember there were some days I would eat alone, but it wasn’t long after I arrived that Charles started joining me. I would come in from washing up in the tub of warm water Marie, the housekeeper, left for me, hair still damp, shirt slightly askew from being dragged over still-moist skin, and find Charles sitting on one of the long wooden benches, grinning at me and offering me a cheery good-morning. I would eat in silence, supping up a bowl of porridge, sometimes with the extra addition of dried fruits if the cook had them. Charles would watch me, remarking that getting up to early to work must leave me hungry. I would sit, eating and not talking, and Charles would fill the silence, telling me of books he had read or his latest specimen from his adventures down to the shore, and I remember being greatly calmed by his endless prattle.

After breakfast it would be our time, just me and Charles. Later he would be expected at the house for his studies with the tutor Brian had hired, and I would return to my room to a pile of books that Charles was always adding to, telling me there was a world out there and I should learn about it. It hadn’t been long after I came to live with him that Charles had realized that any book he brought was useless for a poor shipbuilder’s son who could not read, so he then took it upon himself to teach me. Once I had learned to read well enough, we used that time to set out along the roads and cliffs of Ipswich, to spend time by the sea, to return to those tide pools Charles had been exploring the day I had plunged into the ocean and he’d saved my life. I would stand dutifully by his side, taking bits of plant and small creatures from him and tucking them into the leather satchel he had shoved into my hand. I would sit by his side, my toes digging into the sand as he stared across the sea, nothing the habits of the seabirds or the pattern of the far-off whale spouts misting on the horizon. As my reading improved, I would read to him out of books of poems or help with writing his notes. We were closer than close, more intimate than brothers, better than friends. There were times when Charles would sigh heavily, closer his eyes and tip his head onto my shoulder and the only thing I could do was gently card my fingers through his chestnut hair and study the freckles that covered the bridge of his nose.

Then there was the moment things changed.

I don’t think it was an actual moment. I hold onto the railing as I disembark from the _Mystique_ and my thoughts wander to how things shifted between myself and Charles. There wasn’t any one thing I’ve ever been able to point to. No shining example of how one goes from being friends to being something else entirely. I sometimes blame my growing body, the slowly growing awareness of the way I would respond to one of his smiles, the timbre of his laugh, the angle of his jaw. I cannot decipher exactly when he started to steal into my dreams, his head tipping back to expose the curve of his neck. I do not know when I started to want to kiss him. I’m not sure it matters except that it changed everything.

I want to kiss him now. God help me, I can’t stop picturing those lips that I have missed in a way that is more painful than I have allowed myself to admit, and I want...oh God. I am almost onto the dock now and before me are women throwing themselves into their husbands arms and weatherbeaten sailors with tears wetting their cheeks. I blink back my own and wish the world would be different, that what I feel for Charles could be normal and that I could be one of those men whose hearts are full as they return home to their families.

“Erik!”

I hear my name and turn my head and there he is. Charles, standing in just breeches, shirt and clavet, no coat, and I can tell he had rushed here in haste. I feel tears start to sting my eyes and I wish for a moment it would be like my dreams, that Charles had rushed here to be in my arms, to crush himself to my breast, to tilt his face to mine and I would dip my head to capture those dry lips that he licks too often while concentrating on his studies. Oh dear god, I am trembling. I stare at him, taking him in, blue eyes and, hair turned almost copper from the sun, his face freckled, and I know that he has not done as Brian wished, has not gone to work in the shipyard. He is still my Charles, wild and driven by intellectual pursuits that his father doesn’t understand. I understand him. My head fills with images of Charles wandering the hills beyond the city, collecting flowers and leaves, looking at them under his glass. He has not changed, but I have.

I do not move. I just stand, staring, until Charles finally steps forward, covering the distance between us in a few long strides, and before I can react, he is in my arms, real, warm, pressing himself to my chest, and my arms go up instinctively to wrap round him, wanting this moment to never end. His arms answer mine, wrapping around my back, and I barely notice the pain of my wounds has he holds me tight, as tight as I’d ever dreamed. I cannot help but let out a small sigh.

I am home.

He is my home.

“Oh, Erik,” Charles sighs into my chest, his breath warm through the thin muslin, “I have missed you, my friend.” Then the embrace is over as soon as it’s begun, and I am released from the only place I truly long to be. Charles smiles up at me. “You’re home.” he says breathily, “You've finally come home.”

I do not tell him that I will leave again, and it will come sooner than either of us want, but not soon enough. My heart clenches and I feel the pain well up, the pain that rarely leaves me but ebbs and flows like the sea, and I wish it would leave me but I know it won’t.

“I’ve come home.” I echo without conviction, and I hope that Charles misses how hesitant my voice is.

“I have gone to the highest point of the house every day for the last two months,” Charles says. I wince a little. How can he say these words to me, to tell me he does the same thing that wives and lovers do as they wait for their men to arrive home. I know he can’t know how it hurts. “I have searched the horizon for the _Mystique_ 's masts and prayed you were not somewhere at the bottom of the ocean.”

It is on the tip of my tongue to tell him that perhaps I would be better on the bottom of the ocean. I still say nothing. I let him lead me through the crowd, his arm linked through mine as we weave our way through the throngs of people, Charles still chattering away.

“I did not bring the carriage. I heard she was back, the _Mystique_ , and I jumped up from my studies and ran here right away. Oh Erik, you should have seen Marie’s face when I ran past her without getting my coat. As if the son of Brian Xavier running about without a proper coat would cause scandal. I could not be bothered, my dear friend, because you were home. I wanted to see you right away.”

“Yes.” I manage to gasp out.

“You will have to tell me all about your travels and adventures. Life at sea. I cannot even imagine. What exotic ports did you visit? Did you bring me things, Erik? For my collection, my studies? I wondered if you thought of me while you were away.”

I still cannot answer. Have I thought of him? I have done little else. We leave the docks, still side by side, my satchel bumping my back, my wounds stinging with every step, but I keep my face still. I do not betray my pain, neither the pain of my back or the pain in my heart. Charles is telling me about something he found recently in the tide pools, as if the last six months never happened, as if we were never separated for a minute. I want to grab him, to place my hands on his arms and shake him. I want to ask him if he thinks we can just pick up where we left off, with everything between us, but I know he doesn’t know thing are different for me. He thinks I am the same Erik, the doting friend, the one who spends hours listening to him, the one who tells him in the later hours when we have been up all night talking that he should follow his dreams. I am the one who on rare occasion reaches out and traces his tears with my fingers when he tells me that Brian will never agree for him to go to university instead of staying in Ipswich and learning to run the shipyards.

We make our way up the hill toward the house, and people along the way shout out greetings, wave hello. I am too caught up in my own thoughts to respond back, and I am sure I am reinforcing my reputation of being unfriendly. All the better. I do not need friends, do not need people to talk with about the weather while we down pints of ale at the tavern in the middle of town. I am not the friendly type, so no one is more surprised than I when the door of the Xavier house bursts open when we reach the steps and I find myself embraced by none other than the housekeeper, Marie. It takes me a moment but I manage to embrace her back, and Charles hangs back, watching this rare moment of affection.

“Master Erik!” Marie says, her voice sounding choked with emotion. I find it strange that she would care, and I manage to not remind her again that I am not a ‘master’ in this house. Instead I pull out of her embrace and offer her what might be an awkward smile but it is in the very least genuine.

“Marie.” I say, warmly, and from behind me I hear Charles’ sharp intake of breath. I ignore the sound but I know why. I know he has finally seen the marks of blood seeping through my shirt. “I have missed you.”

They are the words that a person says when they’ve been gone, but as they emerge from my mouth, almost a reflex, I realize they are true. This is as close to a home as I’ve ever had, and from the doorway I can smell dinner in the kitchen, the smell of Marie’s cleaner, a bit of dust drifting in the air and I know she’s been beating the carpets today. I can even smell the ash from the fireplaces, such a familiar smell, and I know part of me has missed this place.

“Erik!” Charles says sharply, his voice filled with concern. I step back from Marie, still holding her hand, then I drop it and turn to him.

“It’s nothing.” I tell him. I can tell from his face that he thinks I am lying, covering up the extend of my injuries. I am not lying. In the scheme of things, it’s of little consequence. I make my face blank and hope he will accept my explanation.

“You’re bleeding, Erik.” Charles says, and I see the frown between his eyes start to form. “What happened?”

“The captain and I had a disagreement.” I say, keeping my voice nonchalant. “This is what happens when you disagree with the way our captain does business. It’s no big deal.”

This has the opposite effect of what I intended. Instead of stepping away and accepting my explanation, Charles steps forward, his blue eyes fixed on me with an intensity that makes me flinch. He takes my hand in his and I fight to hold still.

“Marie.” Charles says sharply, “Don’t take Erik’s things to his room in the staff quarters. He’ll sleep in the guest room across the hall from mine tonight. I want the softest feather bed brought for him. Send one of the stable boys to the tailor and have them make some new shirts for him. This one is ruined.”

I blink. Gone is the wistful boy caught up in his dreams and for the first time I catch a glimpse of the future master of the house, the man Brian Xavier wants his son to grow to be. Charles does not waver. His voice is firm and commanding, and Marie does not hesitate to answer ‘yes sir’ and she turns and scurries back into the house. Charles’ hand still grips mine and he follows Marie into the house, pulling me behind him, and I am reminded of his strength, of those arms that pulled me from the water the day we met. He starts up the stairs, and I follow without protest.

“I will fix this, Erik.” Charles says as we make our way up the steeply slanted staircase. I don’t know what he will fix. My skin? My wounds? My heart? Can he fix my heart, make it stop breaking as we make our way to his bedroom? I should not follow him, should pull my hand from his and tell him I can take care of myself. I do not. There is something about this boy hovering on the edge of manhood that renders me incapable of protest. Since the day he rescued me I have followed him, and I still do now, knowing fully that this will only lead to folly.

He pushes the door of his bedroom and it is exactly how I remember. My eyes sweep the room, taking in the familiar four poster bed, the slightly faded wallpaper, the desk by the window. I can't help but smile when I see the glass sitting on it, the spilled ink, as if the young master had left in a hurry. I cannot stop my heart from ascribing meaning to the evidence of his excitement upon hearing that The _Mystique_ had finally returned.

"Sit." Charles says, his tone still firm but now tinged with concern. I drop my bag on the ground and comply, perching stiffly on the edge of the bed. Despite wanting to protest, I say nothing.

"Off." Charles says. I pause for a moment then do as he has told me. I strip off the thin, worn muslin shirt, wincing as the fabric tears at my wounds, unable to conceal the pain. I crumple it in one hand and toss it on the floor. Then I look at Charles. His eyes meet mine and they are not the brilliant blue I remember but the dark blue of a stormy sea. I see his mouth is tight, twitching at one corner. He is angry. It’s rare to see anger on this face I know so well, but it’s there now.

“It’s the way it is, Charles.” I say, letting out a sigh. He doesn’t know. He sits at his desk and dreams, studies the world, but he does not live in it. He thinks I am everything, deserve the world, but he doesn’t realize that to most men, I am nothing. Below human. And I dared question that. It’s the way it is. Those who question are beaten.

“It is wrong.” he says, his voice tight, his eyes flashing with anger. I do not answer. What I want to say is every mark on my back saved a man from keelhauling, that those marks saved a life. Just for taking water to the slaves we’d brought back from Morocco, the captain trying to make up for poor whaling, keeping the whole crew away from home longer. I had stepped in, told the Captain that the punishment did not fit the crime, and I ended up taking the beating with a cat o’nine tails, but no man was thrown overboard. No man drowned. All for some water offered to the piteous savages below our decks.

“It’s healing,” I say, sounding a bit plaintive. I have nothing else to say. Thanks to Shamus, I do not have a raging infection across my back.

“Turn.” Charles says, and again, I do not protest, although I should. I turn and hear him suck in his breath. “Oh, Erik.” he says again, and this time I can hear the anger has drained from his voice, replaced by something I can’t quite identify. Pity perhaps. I close my eyes. I do not want his pity. I want….

I keep my eyes closed and hear him walk over to his dresser and there is the sound of a cloth dipped in water, wrung out. I feel the bed sag as he sits down next to me and then there is the touch of the cool cloth on my hot skin. I feel a tear leak from the corner of my eye and roll down my cheek.

We sit in silence, Charles carefully dabbing and wiping the cloth at my wounds, me trying to stop the tears that don’t seem to want to stop. I might reach up to wipe them away but then Charles would notice. I do not want him to notice. He finishes with the cloth, and despite the stinging, it feels better. I let out a long, shuddering sigh. Charles gets up again then returns, and I smell the familiar scent of salve, pungent and medicinal.

“There are people studying this, Erik.” Charles murmurs, and I feel his fingertips touch my skin. I take in a long, deep breath. “Blood infections, things that we can’t cure. They kill people.” Another touch on my back. Another involuntary jerk. Another deep breath. My eyes flutter shut again. How long have I longed for this, his fingers on my skin.

When I left I was running from how I felt about my best friend. I ended up learning more than I ever expected. It was as if Charles has woken something in me that I had never realized was there. I ended up in back alleys, men on their knees, my cock in their mouth, my head tipped back against rough wooden walls, gasping in the shadows as I pulsed down their willing throats. I left to get away from Charles and what I learned has left me wanting him even more. Now I know how he could make me feel, what I could do for him, and his fingers on my skin leave me aching in a way that I’m not sure I can bear.

His dabs his fingers at each long wound across my back, slowly and carefully, and I work hard to keep myself from gasping at his touch. When he is finally done, he moves his hands to my shoulders and touches me gently there. I close my eyes again at his touch, a reassuring pressure on my shoulder then suddenly his hands are sliding outward, down my shoulders to my arms, dragging across my skin. My eyes fly open.

“Charles.” I somehow manage to gasp, and I can feel my cock start to fill. I stare at the bedclothes, at a faded blot of ink I’m sure Maria worked hard to get out, maybe muttering how her master needed to be more careful and stop falling asleep while writing his notes. I cannot look away from that only black spot, it's edges uneven.

“Erik.” Charles answers, the timbre of his voice different, rougher. I cannot move. I just stare. “You, you’re changed. You're....”

There is a long pause, as if Charles is searching for words. I do not shift my eyes from the blot.

“Magnificent.”

I close my eyes.

I know I am different. Six months of hard work have taken away any traces of the boy I was and I have returned to Ipswich sinewy and hard, my back and chest muscled in a way they weren’t before, my forearms and legs strong from pulling lines and oars, my body lean from months of poor food. But magnificent. I do not want to hear these words from Charles, these ignorant compliments. I am sure next he will tell me I should enter myself in a local fighting tournament or compete in sports, but he says nothing. His hands slide back up to my shoulders then trace their way down my back, careful to avoid my wounds, and I cannot breath. I cannot move. I cannot even speak. I don’t know what will come next.

The bed springs back up as Charles stands, leaving me, and maybe he has decided this moment is over, but instead he walks round to stand where I can see him. I am still sitting and he stands next to me, staring down, but I still cannot lift my eyes to meet his gaze.

“Erik,” Charles whispers, and the way he says my name pierces my heart. “I want...I just want….”

I can fill in the next word. You. I want you. It’s what I’ve dreamed of hearing but I still cannot look at him. The air feels thick and despite the sounds that carry through the window, the chatter of passers by, the far off yells from the shipyard, the ding-dong of the buoys warning ships of nearby rocks, the room is entirely silent. I squeeze my eyes shut tighter, quietly curse at the tear that leaks from one corner. What have I returned to? What have I done? It’s everything I’ve dreamed of and I can’t help but hate what comes next. I hear Charles take in a deep, long breath, then he finally speaks.

“I’ve missed you, my friend. More than I realized." He pauses for a long moment, opens his mouth then closes it, and finally he speaks. "God help me, More than I should.”

My heart shatters into a million pieces.

He reaches out and I feel his fingers touch my face. They are soft, uncalloused, belonging to someone who is more used to books than ropes. He slowly runs them along the line of my jaw, and stops at my chin, then, with gentle pressure, he tilts my chin upwards so my eyes can no longer avoid his. I open them and when I finally meet his steady blue gaze, I lose all speech, all thought, and my heart starts to pound so loudly that the sound must fill the room.

“More than I should.” Charles repeats, his voice filled with a kind of reverent wonder, as if this has just occurred to him. I have lived with this for months, maybe years, and here, in the confines of his bedroom, as the sun starts to dip beneath the horizon, the walls bathed in the brightness that only twilight can bring, Charles looks as if he’s just unearthed some new, wondrous treasure.

“Yes.” I whisper, still staring up into his eyes. I should say the opposite, push him away, save him, but I should have done differently from the moment I stepped off the _Mystique_. Every choice has led to this moment, and I cannot help but consent. Yes, my heart echoes. Charles surges forward, placing one knee on the bed, his other foot planted on the floor, all so he can lean in closer to me, closer…. He is warm, so warm, and my body responds to him being so close. My breath hitches, my hips move incrementally towards him, seeking him, and every part of me craves his touch.

I have dreamed of this. I have laid on the rough, hard wood of my bunk on the _Mystique_ with Charles in my head. I have pictures his lips, imagined how they might feel against mine. I have loosened the buttons of my breeches and slid my hand down the hot skin of my stomach, grasped my thick, swollen cock as I pictured him, kissed him over and over in my head, let my hands wander over the freckled planes of his skin, dipped my head and tasted the hollow of his throat. Now I am so close and it’s better than I’d ever imagined. His heat, his scent, the way his eyes are dark and wide with desire, his hair falling softly on his forehead, and I feel it tickle as he leans closer.

His head dips and our lips meet.

I sigh into his mouth.

_Charles._

He kisses me. I kiss him back, and I kiss him again. My mouth opens, yielding to him, our tongues slide together. I hear a moan and I’m not sure it’s me or him.

I’m not a stranger to the touch of another man. I was when I left on the _Mystique_ , my eyes shining with tears as I waved farewell to Charles. I had stayed as long as I could, staring at him until he was so small I could distinguish him from any other person bidding the crew farewell. At the time I did not know if I would return, only that I needed to leave. On board ship I found a world where one could be punished for buggery, but still there were hot glances, secret dalliances and the peg boys who served for the pleasure of the crew. All while risking the cat o' nine tails. All while risking death.

What I feel now does not feel like a crime. It is pleasure like I’ve never known.

The world of the foreign ports the _Mystique_ visited was entirely different: exotic ports, exotic people with an entirely different idea of what might be considered normal. It was there that I discovered that what afflicted me was not just one man. I left to escape him and I discovered the pleasure of the male body, the way the touch of another man could make my breath hitch, and it was then that I knew that what I struggled with was bigger than just feelings for my boyhood friend. Still, I could not stay in those locales. My heart longed for home, for the one who I now knew that I not only lusted for but loved, and I could not stay where I might find peace and acceptance for who I am. Peace can never be afforded someone like me.

I am his. Whatever that may mean. I always have been. I always will be. As his lips move on mine I know this in a way that causes so much pain I can barely stand it. I am his, yet I belong nowhere. The only place I find any measure of peace is the sea, married to a mistress that cares little for my life or death.

“Erik.” Charles whispers against my lips and we both still, his hands gripping my arms, our lips no longer touching but mere inches apart. I can feel his breath as he huffs and my chest rises and falls as I try to catch my own. I open my eye and find his staring into mine, dark with desire. “I never…” Charles sputters, obviously grasping for words, his eyes searching my face, looking for something. “I didn’t know….” He starts again, then finally settles on, “I had no idea.”

He is staring at me, his eyes wide with surprise and pleasure. I cannot look away, cannot avoid his gaze. I watch as his tongue licks at his lips, and then he makes a sound, a plaintive, wanting, begging sound that cuts me to the quick. Suddenly I am dizzy with lust in a way I’ve never felt in my entire life. Any hesitation that I might have been holding onto falls away and I lunge forward, capturing Charles' mouth with a brutality that surprises me. He startles and for a split second I expect him to pull away, to bring his hands to my chest and push at me, to call me a filthy sodomite. Instead he groans, deep and long, and matches my fervor with his own. I have known dark alleys. I have known furtive dalliance in the bunks separated by long pieces of dirty canvas, a head bobbing in the dark, wet mouth on my cock. I have tangled my fingers in greasy hair, thrusted my hips upwards and fucked into a stranger's mouth, biting back a moan. All of that and I have never known the kind of fire that grips me with just a kiss from this man. My cock aches and I pull Charles towards me, slamming him against me, then I push him backwards onto the bed, rolling to pin him with my chest, our lips never parting the entire time.

I feel possessed and all I want in that moment is to roll Charles over, pull down his breeches and gaze at his round, lovely ass. I want to lean down and trail kisses from the nape of his neck down his spine to the dimples in his lower back. I want to take the fluid that leaks from my cock, spit into my hand and trace down the crack of his ass with my fingers, dipping inside, and finally I want to plunge my throbbing cock into that tightness, thrust my hips and let myself go. I want to press myself to his back, dip my head and whisper into his ear how good he feels. I want it all.

I feel the shallow rise and fall of Charles' chest. Our lips break apart and he chases after me, but instead of kissing me again he ends up burying his face in my breast, mouthing at my sweat-damp skin. I feel his tongue swipe out and taste me and I whimper. In his innocence, Charles is somehow more skilled, more knowing how to please than a well-used peg boy. I shiver and want more, longing to crush our lips together once again. My palms press against the bed, arms shake with exertion, supporting my weight as I hover above him. Charles' head falls back onto the bedclothes and he stares up at me with dark, hooded eyes, his hair damp with sweat to the point that it’s starting to curl a little around his ears. I stare back, my eyes locked with his, and in that moment I know he will let me do anything to him. He does not know what his eyes beg me for. He does not know that being like me will destroy him.

Still, I do not stop. I do not want to. No, I can’t. We are both on a path from which there is no turning back.

His hands come up from where they rest on the bed, reaching for me, fingers sliding across my chest. My skin is slick with sweat, a bead running down the side of my face, ticking, and I want to swipe it away, but I cannot move. I am frozen in this moment, Charles’ hands on my skin, until I cannot bear it. I let out a long, broken sound as I finally give in to what I really want. Damn the consequences. My whole body shakes with release, and I press my groin down hard, feeling the welcome pressure on my aching cock. Charles lets out a loud gasp as our cocks meet, still clothed, not even close to what I truly want, but still enough. More than enough. Everything. I press down again and watch as Charles' eyes lose focus, his jaw goes slack and this time no sound escapes his mouth. His face is awash with ecstasy, his mouth transforming into a perfectly shaped ‘oh’.

“Your clothes. Off.” Charles mutters thickly, then he says my name, almost begging. I know what he wants: my skin on his skin, legs tangled, mouths tasting. His hands reach to my waistband, plucking at the buttons of my wide-legged breeches. I would help him but I am still holding myself above him. All I can do is stare as his deft, small fingers work each button loose. His nails are bitten and the sides of his fingers are ink-stained. I wonder how many times I’ve watched them as he scrawled notes about his studies, or carefully pried a limpet from a rock. How many times have those fingers beckoned to me, slid across my shoulders in a familiar gesture of friendship. Now they work to peel away the cloth of my breeches, pushing them down my strong, muscled thighs, sculpted by long hours of work on the _Mystique_ , sprinkled with hair, his fingers brushing almost innocently down their length and I shimmy my hips to help him further. I manage to kick off my breeches, not caring where they land, and Charles runs the palms of his hands back up my thighs. I shiver at the pressure and I bite my lip in anticipation of their destination. My cock is now free. I glance down and find that it is flushed and weeping fluid. I look at Charles and see he is gazing at it too. Then he licks his lips and I am overcome with lust at the sight of his tongue wetting those lips that that are already swollen from my kisses.

“Your turn.” I say hoarsely, surprised I am capable of forming words in this moment. "Off."

Charles jerks, as if in a trance, and he nods. I am trembling with the effort to hold still because all I want is to thrust my hips downward, to feel the drag of his breeches against my cock, to seek that sweet relief I know would be so easy to obtain. I am panting, almost whimpering, because I want this so badly. Charles tugs at his collar, loosening it, exposing his neck. I quickly dip my head and lick at the hollow of his throat, eliciting a moan from him. Charles’ hands come up and he grabs at my back. I jerk my head up as his fingers press against my wounds and I can’t help but cry out from the pain of his touch. I feel yet another tear leak from the corner of my eye, but not because of the pain. I weep because I cannot be whole for the man I love. I am beaten and broken in more than one way.

“Erik!” Charles cries out and his hands leave my back immediately. Despite the pain, I immediately want his touch back and I almost beg him in spite of the pain.

“No.” I manage to say between gasps, “Please. It’s okay. I’m okay.”

There is nothing about this that’s okay, but I cannot say that. I stare at his face for a long moment and see that his cheeks are wet. I dip my head and start to kiss those tears. They taste of salt and Charles and everything I have ever wanted but cannot have.

“Please.” I whisper against his cheek as I squeeze my eyes tightly shut. “I just want to see you.”

Charles resumes undressing, his fingers quickly working at the buttons on his shirt and I watch with hungry eyes as he shrugs off the fine linen of his shirt, far finer than anything allowed the boy who cleans the fireplaces and lives in the servants quarters, even if I am his best friend. And even farther from the cast-off clothing the sailors are given from the sloppes chest, shirts with wide sleeves that are easy to work in, baggy wide-legged breeches, and never a shoe in sight. When Charles is finally finished, I stare down at his chest. His skin is pink and freckled, damp from exertion, and the first thing I see are his nipples, growing hard in the cool air. Without hesitation I lower my mouth to one, first swiping across it with my tongue, then worrying it with my teeth, nipping softly, and I feel Charles’ hips buck. Then I suck and he whimpers softly. Dear god, I don’t know if I’ve ever known anything or anyone sweeter, and if not for the almost unbearable ache in my groin, the fact that my arms feel as if they might give out at any moment, I might give those tight buds my attention for an eternity.

I am suddenly struck by the fact that Charles is still not entirely naked, so I finally roll off him and onto my side. Charles and I both reach for his breeches at the same time, and between the two of us we make quick work of stripping the offending piece of clothing off, Charles tossing it somewhere behind him. I don’t know if it has landed on the floor, or on a chair, nor do I care. All I want is to climb atop Charles, to press myself against him, for our skin to finally slide together, slick and damp, and to finally feel him.

“Erik.” Charles gasps as I lower my weight upon him, slowly, not betraying the urgency that grips me. “Oh Erik.” I cannot get enough of my name from his lips, his voice thick with lust. “I am yours. I am all yours.”

I almost still because he cannot know what he says. He is not mine. Instead I range up over him and capture his mouth with mine in a brutal, honest kiss that lays bare my very heart. He answers me in kind, his tongue tangling with mine, and I can’t help but moan. I cannot answer, but my heart sings out that if he is mine, I am forever his.

“I want to touch you.” I somehow manage to gasp, and my fingers ache with those words, longing to reach down, grasp his thickness in my palm, feel him swell even more at my touch. I long to know what sounds he’ll make as I grip his cock in my hand, start to slide it up and down his shaft.

“Where?” Charles manages to ask despite his rapid breathing, his sweaty brow.

“Everywhere.” I answer. Then I plead with him. “Give me leave, Charles. Give me leave.”

I do not know how Charles could know what I mean, asking for leave, needing him to tell me it is okay for me to touch him in the way I want. I know he has not even kissed a lass, ever fondled a bosom, let alone known the love of another man. Yet his eyes gaze into mine with a steadfastness that I do not share, a conviction that eludes me. I want to bury my face in his neck and weep with the sadness that suddenly overcomes me.

“You have my leave.” Charles whispers, and it is as if he has always understood. The words that follow shake me to my core. “Always, Erik. Now. Forever.”

My stomach clenches with his words and my cock jumps, and I feel almost blind with lust. I should beg him not to speak of forever. Instead I spit into my palm and reach down to finally grasp his cock while I return my attentions to his mouth. Any sound he might make is muffled by my lips. I do not waste this moment, swiping my hand up and down his cock, moving his foreskin up and down his shaft. I twist my hand, swipe a finger underneath the sensitive skin of the head and Charles arches shamelessly, his eyes fluttering shut as he lets out a long, drawn out moan. I shift incrementally until my own cock is next to his, then, opening my hand, I fist both his and my cock together. The velvet smooth feel of our cocks sliding together is beyond anything I’ve ever known.

Everything is awkward, my hand bent at an uncomfortable angle, our hips are thrusting out of synch, yet it’s more perfect than anything I could ever imagine because it’s not some dirty dalliance in a back room but Charles. My Charles. I chant his name over and over, sweat dripping from my brow and it feels good. So good I want it to last forever, except there is such a buildup of heat, a quickly growing tension that I also long for release. I bury my head in the crook of Charles’ neck, his mouth is next to my ear, breath hot and he whispers my name. His hands grip my back and I no longer feel pain, only pleasure. Everything is intense, focused, and I start to feel the tightness build in my groin, that sweet far off prelude to release, and I don’t know how much longer I can hold myself back. Just as I’m going to finally beg, I feel Charles jerk against me and he comes, hot and sticky all over my hand, groaning deeply in my ear, and it’s the sound of his release that tips me over the edge. I jerk and my cock pulses, and I glance down to see that I have striped Charles belly with my come. I am about to collapse onto Charles, when he whispers again into my ear, his voice sounding slurred with the afterglow of orgasm, thick with sleep. What he says turns my entire world upside down.

“Oh Erik. Erik, my love. I love you.”

His words are tired and sincere, and I know that in that moment he means them with all his heart. But even if he means them, he does not know what he says. He cannot. He is Charles Xavier, sheltered son of Brian Xavier. He is destined for greatness. He cannot love me. The world will not allow it. It will destroy him. He cannot become yet another sodomite tossed off the bow of a ship, keelhauled for loving another man. He must remain untouched, unsullied. He cannot become someone like me.

I do not move, staying collapsed on top of Charles, my face still in the crook of his neck, and I hope he mistakes the tears that are now running down my face for more sweat from our exertions and not the sadness that they might betray. I stay there for a long moment and press the occasional gentle kiss to his skin, not moving, not speaking. Then I roll myself off him and pull him into my embrace, turning us both on our sides, and curling myself around his back. My hands wrap around his chest and pull him tightly to me, and I bury my nose in his hair, then dip to press a kiss to the nape of his neck. I hold him like this until Charles’ breathing finally starts to slow, his heart gradually returns to its normal rhythm and I feel the subtle twitch of his muscles as his body finally give into the exhaustion that often follows sex. And only then do I whisper back:

"I love you too."

Nothing makes sense yet I know what I must do. Charles cannot love me. It puts him in danger. There is one thing that will keep him safe. One thing that threatens to tear me apart.

The sun is almost below the horizon and the room is almost dark as I lie next to Charles, naked on the bedclothes. I watch him sleep in the quickly fading light, noting the soft rise and fall of his chest, how is mouth looks soft and relaxed, his brow smooth, as if he hasn’t a care in the world. The sounds of Ipswich drift through the window, along with the smell of the sea. How I had longed to escape that smell, a combination of seaweed, rotting fish and salt, while I was on the _Mystique_. Now it calls to me. My soul is in such turmoil, churning like the worst tempest I have ever faced. I trace the lines of Charles’ face with my eyes, memorizing them, because I know this is the last time I will see him. I lean down and place a soft kiss on his lips, and for a moment I think I have managed to wake him as he shifts restlessly on the bedclothes, and mumbles something that sounds like my name. I swallow hard, and hold still, but instead of waking Charles burrows further into the bedclothes. I let out a breath I had not realized I’d been holding. It is time for me to go, to leave all of this behind. I move to leave when I feel his hand lightly grip my wrist and I freeze.

"Erik." I hear him say, his voice thick and drowsy. I wonder for a moment if he is talking in his sleep, but when I turn my head I find his eyes open and gazing at me with so much tenderness that I feel I cannot breathe. It is nearly dark now and his face is mostly on the shadows, but I can still see his eyes and the way they look at me.

"Charles." I hear myself gasp, his name ripped from somewhere deep inside me. He reaches up a hand and traces his fingers along my jaw then cradles it in his palm. I cannot help but lean into his touch.

"Must you go?" Charles asks, his tone pleading. "Stay. No one will notice."

"A little while." I whisper, turning my face and planting a kiss on Charles' palm. "But I must sleep in the guest bed tonight. I cannot stay with you until dawn." Charles nods and I slide back down next to him, wrapping my arms around him, biting back the tears that sting my eyes.

"I love you, Erik. I am yours...." Charles sighs and I feel him rest against me, heavy and languid. I'm about to respond when he adds one more word and with that word my heart slowly shatters.

"Forever."

I want to fall on my knees, to take his hands in mine and pledge myself to him for the rest of my life. Instead I choke back a sob and hold him even tighter, feeling his muscles slowly relax, his breathing slow and before long he is once again asleep.

I do not sleep. I cannot.

After a long while I untangle myself from where I have been lying next to Charles and stand naked in the middle of the room. His room. A room where I don’t belong, where I never have. My place is not here, despite Charles’ protestations. It is in the servant quarters. It is crouched by the fireplace, sweeping ashes. It is on the deck of the _Mystique_ , my feet bare, salt stinging my eyes and my palms chapped red from the lines. It is not lying naked next to the man I love with the curtains blowing softly in the breeze.

I must go.

I pick up my clothes from the floor and pull them on. I grab my canvas satchel from the floor. I will leave this place tonight, find a room at one if the boarding houses, and wait until I can leave this town. The _Mystique_ will leave in a week or two, and I will leave with her. And this time I will not stand on her deck with tears in my eyes. This time I will not return.

I look out the window and see the great bird in the sky, hovering over where I know the _Mystique_ is docked. Father, waiting for me, his spirit calling to me. I glance back over at Charles, who is sleeping soundly. I realize then that it’s not just that I love him now, but I have loved him for my entire life.

“Goodbye, my love.” I whisper into the quiet of the room. I came to find him again and I have discovered there is only one answer: I must leave and I must leave forever.


	3. The Blackbird.

Raven grips the ship’s wheel of the _Blackbird_ and peers out into the distance, looking for something that she’s not sure is even there. She glances upwards at the mast, watching the tell tales flutter, then she sniffs at the wind. It has the familiar smell of salt, but there is something else there, a certain smell. One more glance upwards and she sees that although there is blue sky above, there are some clouds in the distance that look more threatening than they should.

“Storm, Captain?”

Raven glances over at her first mate’s familiar face. It’s an old face, wrinkled by the sun, sparkling blue eyes peering at her from under silver cropped hair. Most of the crew know the first mate as Ira, but Raven knows her as Irene, her companion for almost the last five years. She flashes Irene a smile.

“Maybe.” Raven shrugs. Her gaze roves over the deck of the small schooner, her home. She always feels a slight thrill when she leaves land. She’s always happiest on board ship, when she returns to being mistress of her floating kingdom on the sea, mother to her band of misfits, hoping to make enough money to ensure they can make the repairs the _Blackbird_ needs, that there will be enough food for all, and surely enough drink, that their sails can be mended and that she can head out to sea once again; the only place she feels truly content. This is where she’s truly free.

The boy is on the bow again, standing close to the edge as the _Blackbird_ cuts through the water. He does not fit in. Not yet, but he will with some time. His clothes are still too fine. His accent not rough enough. Yet there is something about him, a sadness in his eyes that Raven could not turn away from that day on the docks. He was in line to crew for the _Cyttorak_ , looking small and lost, and Raven knew that on that ship he would meet a fate no one would want. Someone as pretty as him would end up bent over and used by everyone, becoming another vacant-eyed peg boy for Captain Marko and his crew. 

Normally Raven would have walked away. She doesn’t concern herself with the fate of others. It’s too dangerous, too vulnerable. On the vast endless sea a captain needs most to look out for herself, especially a woman captain. At least that’s what she tells Irene, ignoring the twist of Irene’s mouth that tells her she knows Raven lies. After all, Raven is an orphan and her whole crew are misfits she’s picked up from one place or another, all saved from a fate they never chose, all finding a home and a family on the _Blackbird_. The boy in line became another of Raven’s strays, instead of walking by and ignoring him she took him by the arm, pulled him aside and offered him a job. 

He’d told her he had no skill. Raven had smirked a little and told him he could learn. It would be hard work. Swabbing the deck, cleaning the galley. His soft hands would be calloused, but he would not be in the grips of Captain Marko. And if he did not agree to come with her, to become a follower of Captain Darkholme, a member of the _Blackbird_ ’s crew, she had a pistol in her waistband that could easily convince the land lubber differently. She was not going to let him go.

Now he spends the time he’s not working standing on the bow of the ship, staring out onto the open sea, his arms wrapped around him to ward off the dampness. Raven knows he is haunted, but by what, she has never asked. 

“He’ll be okay,” Irene says from by her side, and yet again it’s as if her first mate can predict the future. Raven takes heart in Irene’s words because her lover, the woman who holds her heart, has never been wrong. They have roamed the seas together, going from port to port, plundering ship after ship, and whatever Irene has predicted will happen, has come to pass. Time and again. So if she says the boy will be okay, Raven knows he will be. She just doesn’t always know how. 

Raven turns and flashes Irene a smile. Raven wears her standard captain’s uniform: a skull cap on her head, the same pants all the other crew wear and a long coat. From a distance one would think Captain Darkholme no different than any other captain. Only up close do you realize she is of the fairer sex. Irene is no different, with her short hair and weathered skin. It keeps them safe in a world that thinks women exist for men to fornicate with, whether it be their will or not, and would never imagine that one would captain a ship like the _Blackbird_. 

The wind shifts suddenly and the _Blackbird_ surges forward. Raven glances upwards to see that the sky is indeed starting to fill with clouds and some of them look ominous. She frowns and peers out over the bow again. The sea is starting to look dark, the smooth waters rippling a little. Raven feels the familiar clench of adrenaline then she feels the ship surge again. Too soon. She chews at her lip, a nervous habit she’s never been able to rid herself of. 

“She’s gonna blow,” Irene says, her eyes looking the same direction as Raven’s.

“Aye.” Raven answers. She doesn’t say anything more. Her mouth presses into a thin line of worry and her muscles tense. The wind gusts again and now she can see that whitecaps are starting to form in the distance. Suddenly the sunshine that’s been streaming over the deck of the _Blackbird_ disappears and one more glance up reveals that the blue sky is now almost entirely blocked by dark gray, roiling clouds. Raven grips the _Blackbird_ ’s wheel ever harder, her knuckles going white, and she’s filled with a sudden sense of urgency. 

Here they go. It’s going to be a rough one. 

“Batten down the hatches," Raven yells, working hard to make her voice loud enough to be heard by everyone. She watches as the men who have been lounging around the deck jump to attention and start running around, following her orders. There is Armando and Alex, Hank, and the ex-prostitute they’d picked up in the Orient who calls herself Jubilee. There are swells now and the _Blackbird_ climbs up them then slams back down, water splashing up onto her bow. They are small at the moment but Raven knows they will grow so large that the waves will wash up over the deck and wash away anyone who is not below. Her eyes return to the bow and to her dismay the boy has not moved. There is spray coming up over the front now but he stands there, still staring into the distance, oblivious to the danger that lies ahead. Raven swallows, for suddenly she is afraid for him. If he has so little sense or so little care for his life, what lies in the future for him?

“He will be okay.” Irene says softly, and she reaches out and touches Raven on the inside of the wrist, a gesture that can only be read as intimate. “He just needs to find him. Needs to show him the way. Then they will both be alright.”

Raven turns to Irene and blinks, taking in her words. Sometimes Irene makes no sense, but Raven has learned not to ask questions. Irene has her ways. 

“Xavier!” Raven barks as the wind kicks up again. There is no way around this storm. They must go through and trust that the _Blackbird_ will hold up once again. “Down below!” 

He jerks at the sound of his name then scuttles along the deck and towards the hatch that leads to safety. Raven smiles, then grips the wheel tightly. Bring on the storm, she thinks, her bright red hair blowing across her face. This is not the day she and her crew will meet their fate. This is far from Captain Darkholme’s last voyage.


	4. Charles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles POV

I am in love with my best friend.

If I think about this for any length of time I know it’s been true for longer than I realize. Yet I cannot think of it too much because when I do there is such deep pain that rips through me I feel I can hardly breathe.

The salt spray comes up over the bow of the ship but I do not move. I cannot move. I stare out over the sea, over the darkening waters, as if I could look hard enough to see him. Instead I gaze upon an endlessly barren world, nothing on the horizon as far as my eye can see. Still, I cannot give up hope. I cannot.

I woke alone. I did not wake up without joy, though. Erik was home. He was sleeping across the hallway and I would see him shortly. I remember how I stretched, ;:a and how the memory of the previous night came rushing back. I touched my lips and remembered his mouth on mine, his kisses that trailed down my body. I ached just thinking about how Erik had touched me. I remembered his words, whispered hot into my ear, how he had told me he loved me and I knew then that I had loved him since the day I dragged him from the sea. I just hadn’t known I could love him like that. How could I have not known?

I was naked still, stinking, but it wasn’t the kind of stink that bothered me. It was the stink of sleep and, oh God, fornication. I closed my eyes and remembered how my cock had pulsed in Erik’s hand, how good the release had felt. I slowly crawled out of bed and found the basin Marie had left on my side side table. I carefully washed myself off, then pulled on my unused sleeping gown, fighting back my anticipation the entire time. Finally I had pushed the door of my bedroom open and crept across the hallway to the guest room, pushing the door open and wincing at the creak it had made. I did not want to wake up Erik. My Erik. I had imagined what it might be like to stand over his bed, watch him sleeping, the shadow of lashes on his cheek, the rise and fall of his chest.

That would never be.

Standing on the bow of the ship I can still feel the way my chest clenched and the breath left my body when I opened the door to find an empty bed. There was no mark of anyone having slept there, the bedcovers left smooth and untouched. Even now, miles away from that room, from my home, it’s like it was yesterday.

Everyone thought the young master had taken ill. Some sort of strange tropical fever gripped my body. I fell to my knees, buried my face in the soft feather bed I had requested just for Erik. It was only Marie who heard me sob his name, for she was the first person to rush into the room at the noise I was making. She was the first person to touch my back with her soft hand, to smooth across the fabric of my night gown.

“He is gone, Master Charles?” Marie had whispered, and I wondered in that moment how much she knew. I could not answer. I just let her pull me to my feet and help me back across the hallway, back to the safety of my bed.

I stayed there for a week, maybe longer. Brian had the best doctors in town at my bedside. I swallowed bitter tinctures as I lay there staring at the ceiling, not caring if I lived or died. Erik had left. He had told me he loved me, held me in the night, told me I was his forever. Then he left. Marie was there too, her hand wiping my brow with a cool cloth, her eyes soft and kind.

“There is another way.” Marie whispered one morning as I turned my back to the sun shining into the window. I did not answer. What did she know? How could she know? “You could find him.” she continued, her hand smoothing my damp hair, and I closed my eyes at her touch.

Her words had felt like an anchor pulling me down. I was one person, trapped in my room, trapped by my sorrow. Even if I got up and dried my eyes, I was nothing without Erik. He has always been the only person who believed in me, told me I could do what I wanted. The only thing I’d ever held onto was that he would return. And now he wouldn’t. I was trapped by my circumstance, my father growing more and more discontented with his son who does not want to learn to build ships, to send more and more men away to that accursed sea that has stolen the one I love. A son who did not want to sit in an office, stare at ledgers, exchange money, discuss plans. Yet it is the only fate I could see.

Erik would tell me I am strong. I had never felt more weak.

“Another way, young master Charles.” Marie whispered again. I pushed her words away, but not entirely. Something stuck, clung to my psyche and for the first time I felt a small curl of hope. It was that curl of hope that let me here, but I have discovered that hope can be a cruel master.

The wind picks up, whipping my hair about, and I wrap my arms around myself. I hear yelling from around me, the sound of feet scurrying across the deck. Looking out over the sea I can see that she has changed, turning dark and ominous. I shiver a bit and wonder what would happen if I just stayed here, facing the gale. Would I be swept away? Would this finally be over?

I felt like this the day I stood in my father’s study and told him I would be leaving, as if I was standing on the edge of the world about to fall off, facing a storm of epic proportions.

He hadn’t looked up when I first said the words. I was thin, shivering because all I could ever feel was cold these days. I had managed to pull on my shirt and breeches, and even take a few bites of the porridge Marie had set in front of me. I felt weak yet stronger than I had in maybe my entire life.

“Enjoy your day, Charles.” Brian finally said his tone dismissive. He still did not glance up, quill scratching away at a ledger, his eyes and mind not caring to pay attention to his only son who stood before his desk. I closed my eyes and started again.

“I am not leaving for the day," I had spit out. “I am not going on a hike and returning for supper. I am leaving forever, Father.”

Brian’s hand stopped moving. He looked up, peering at me in a confused manner.

“You said you were going to the sea,” he finally said, his tone measured and even. “Isn’t that what you do every day? Scramble around on the rocks, picking up useless things, not even bringing home animals that the cook might throw into the pot?”

I closed my eyes briefly, to hear my own father’s disdain for the things I love, my passions.

“I am going to sea, Father. To sea. I am leaving and I will not be back.”

They are the bravest words I have ever spoken and as they left my lips, I started to feel the first of the chains that have bound me start to fall away. I started to feel free for the first time in my life.

“You cannot,” Brian said, his eyes narrowing, then, as if the conversation was over, he picked up his quill and returned to his ledger.

“You cannot keep me, Father,” I said fiercely. “I am going.”

Brian huffed out a laugh and I remember how it made me cringe. I fought back a surge of doubt at the way my father dismissed me, as if I was not allowed to think for myself, to determine my own destiny. As if I was doomed to stay in that house, at his beck and call, and all that I saw for myself in that moment was a lifetime of misery, stuck in the cramped, dusty office of the shipyard, the smell of wood shavings never leaving my nostrils, without sin, fresh air, without hope. Brian looked up once again from his work and this time his face was neither astounded nor kind. It was cruel.

“You will be dead to me," Brian said slowly, his voice even. “I have not nursed you through this cursed illness just to have you leave me. Do as I say, boy.”

“Go to hell,” I spat out, and in that moment I felt conviction like I’d never felt before.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” my father asked. I blink in surprise. “That Lehnsherr boy. The one I took under my roof, fed, clothed. He’s put these ideas into your head, led you astray.”

I had almost laughed at this, except the pain of hearing my father speak of Erik in such a manner was almost too much.

“No,” I managed to sputter, then I let out a dry laugh at the irony that my father thinks I’ve just been led astray, “it’s not him father. It’s me. I finally know what I’ve always suspected. My place is not here. It never has been. Erik is... Erik is gone. He’s been gone for more than a week and you did not even notice. This is me. I cannot stay here, do as you want me to and forever be a disappointment. I must follow...I must follow my heart.”

Brian said nothing for a long while and I remember how my palms sweated, how my muscles trembled, but still I stood strong, holding on tightly to my conviction because it was all I had left. Finally Brian looked up again and frowned a little to find me still standing there.

“Go then.” Brian said dismissively. And those were the last words my father spoke to me. I feel I should have some tears about this, but I have not shed one for him since I walked out that door for the last time, a canvas satchel slung over my shoulder. Marie was standing at the door as I left and she pressed a bag into my hand.

“Food, Master Charles,” she had said, “and some money from my savings. Enough to get by for a bit of time.”

“Marie,” I had gasped. I pulled her into my arms and held her, my beloved housekeeper. She is the person I miss most. My father can burn in hell for all I care, but Marie... Marie is what feels like home, and it was painful to leave her.

I wanted to say this to her, but I could not find the words. Instead she found the words I needed to hear.

“Find him, young master. Find him.”

I will never know how Marie knew what Erik was to me. I will never know why it did not cause her to turn away in disgust. What I do know is that her words have been a boon to me, a beacon in the darkness. On those nights when the pain is so great I never want to wake up, I hear her words. _Find him_. I think of Marie and I promise her that I will. As long as it takes, I will find him.

The sound of my name being yelled jerks me from my revery, and I realize that I am wet, soaked to the bone from the waves that have started to crash across the bow. I glance backwards and see Captain Darkholme at the helm, her hair blowing wildly in the wind, and she yells my name again, telling me to get below. Her first mate stands next to her, staring into the abyss with a frown on her face and I know they are right. I think of Marie and know that I cannot stay here, cannot give in to allowing the sea to take me and end my pain. Not if I’m going to find him. I startle a little then move, scurrying like the rest of the crew to the hatch that will provide relative safety.

It’s damp below. The _Blackbird_ isn’t a big ship and she doesn’t carry a large crew. We sit, pressed side by side as she climbs up huge swells then crashes down, her sides creaking, the sound of the rain battering down onto us never stopping. I’ve never been in something like this, never felt so close to the raw power of the sea and sky.

The crew huddles together. I watch them with careful eyes. The first mate is on deck, standing next to Captain Darkholme. She is never far away from our captain. Across from me Armando and Alex sit closely together. They are a strange lot, leaning into each other, Alex’s hand on Armando’s thigh, rubbing reassuringly. I try not to stare, try not to think about what I might have had, try not to remember the feel of Erik under my hands. Jubilee sharpens her knife. Irene has told me to be careful of her. She does not take to being touched very well and several of the crew bear scars from her knife that testify to this.

“She has been hurt.” Irene had told me when I first boarded the _Blackbird_. “But haven’t we all been hurt?” the first mate continued, “Don’t we all carry our scars, on our skin or on our souls? I did not respond. I wonder if she was not just talking about Jubilee. I wonder if she was talking about me. I do not answer the her. I just listen. This is my place on the _Blackbird_ : to watch, to learn.

“It is different here,” I remember saying, looking over at the grizzled first mate as she blinked into the sunshine. It was the day we left Ipswich and the whole crew was buzzing with the excitement of it.

“It’s our world.” Irene answered. I did not inquire more.

Now as I sit huddled in the hold, I watch the people of this world and I feel a strange sort of peace. Peace that has maybe eluded me for my entire life. Maybe this can be my world too and maybe it can be ours. Mine and Erik’s. If can find him, tell him that there is a different way.

The _Blackbird_ rocks back and forth as she makes her way through the storm. I hug my knees to my chest and rest my chin on them. My eyelids droop and despite the storm I somehow manage to fall asleep.

I dream of Erik. I always do. He is with me on the beach, we are searching the tide pools together, but I can't find what I'm looking for. I can feel the warm sun on my face, taste the salt of the sea. I am home, or what I had always felt was home, again: the beaches of Ipswich. I glance at Erik, taking in the way the sun glints in his hair, that smile he only shows me. To the rest of the world Erik is first a stoic boy and then a young man who has seen too much. But the way he looks at me, that smile. I know him. I have since the day I pulled him from the sea, the pain on his face making me physically ache. I smile back and I feel the sand between my toes, for I have left my shoes on the edge of the beach. My hair blows in my eyes and I know Marie would chide the young master for forgetting to get it cut, letting it grow wild and long. Then I am back at the tide pools and I am searching, searching, scrambling over rocks that cut my bare feet. I can't find it but I don't even know what I search for. I call out for Erik and he's not there. He's gone. I call out again and I cannot remember. I can't remember....

"Erik!"

"It's Armando," a voice says from above me, and I feel a hand shake my shoulder. "Time for your watch, mate."

I stare up into the face of the man who is hovering over me. I have never known anyone like Armando. He flashes me a smile, white teeth brilliant against his dark skin. He speaks accented English and Portuguese, is descended from slaves, has a quick wit and spends every night on the same bunk as Alex.

“They are so queer.” I had said to Irene one day. She had turned and looked at me with a quizzical look in her eyes.

“Who?” the first mate asked. My brow furrowed. How could she not know who I spoke of?

“Alex and Armando,” I say. Irene’s mouth twisted into some sort of smile.

“They love each other, Charles,” she had said plainly, as if it should be obvious. “Don't you have someone you love?”

I could not answer. Irene looked at me expectantly but I still could not find the words. I could not say to another person that yes, I loved someone. It would lay my soul too bare. Yet I got the sense that Irene did not want an answer to her question. Somehow she already knew. Luckily I was saved by the arrival of our captain.

"We are a ship of fools, young master," Captain Darkholme had said obliquely, walking up to stand next to Irene. I had not realized she had overheard our conversation. I remember how the captain placed her hand on the first mate’s arm and how for the first time I started to understand where I had ended up. "We make our own rules, Xavier, one of them being always having a well swabbed deck."

I had taken the hint and scurried off to run the dingy mop over the worn wooden planks one more time.

I would later learn that Armando and Alex had been on the crew of the _Cyttorak_ , the ship I had almost signed on to. Captain Darkholme had boarded her, determined to plunder her load. She found Alex tied to the mast, half starved, sun burnt, with lips so parched he could barely speak. Armando was about to meet a worse fate, the crew poised to keelhaul him when the _Blackbird_ had overtaken the _Cyttorak_. The Captain had held a pistol to Marko’s neck while Irene cut Alex free and it had been Alex who had refused to leave without Armando by his side. They had been freed. In more ways than one. Maybe I could be free as well.

Now I blink up at Armando who seems entirely too chipper. Then I notice that the _Blackbird_ is swaying and creaking as gently as she ever does, there is no howl of the wind, no sound of the waves breaking against her hull.

"The storm?" I ask. I'm surprised to see Armando shrug nonchalantly, as if that storm barely mattered.

"Done. Cap'n got us arse up through but she was a shaky howler anyway. Now get up, boy before Cap'n strikes the bell. Ye round the bend or somethin'?"

I shake my head and stand up so quickly that I almost stagger from the sudden rush of blood from my head. My upbringing in the Xavier house, my studies, have not prepared me for the world aboard ship and I'm not sure I entirely understand what has been said to me. The most I get from Armando is that he thinks I'm a bit daft and I need to hurry aloft. I take a brief moment to stretch and am grateful that the sudden waking has managed to sweep Erik from my head. Almost.

The sun is shining and I blink from its brightness when I stick my head through the hatch. The sea is clear and blue with nothing on the horizon as far as the eye can see. A stiff breeze blows, filling the _Blackbird_ 's sails, and she cuts quickly through the deep blue waters of the Atlantic. I look around, dumbfounded to wake to such a peaceful scene, then I stumble up onto the deck. It’s deserted except for the first mate who is looking at me with a small smile on her lips. Irene hands me my mop and I take it without argument. She looks at me for a long moment and there is something in her eyes. A wisdom that seems even beyond her years and a knowledge of things I don't even know myself.

"The _Mystique_." Irene says suddenly. I startle.

"What?" I say, my mouth growing dry. "How? I mean..."

"Captain Darkholme.” Irene says by way of explanation. “She wants the _Mystique_."

I feel the tension in my shoulders slip away. Irene doesn't know what the _Mystique_ means to me. How could she? I swallow and finally find my voice.

"Can she find her?" I ask, wondering how anyone could find something in this endless barren place, water stretching as far as the eye can see. My heart is pounding in my chest and I feel a strange swell of hope. Irene smiles at me.

"Raven can find anything she wants." Irene says softly, arching her eyebrow as if I have asked a stupid question. "She found you, didn't she?"

I nod. Yes she did.

 

\--

 

I had no idea where I was going the day I walked away from the house I’d grown up in. All I knew was that I was going to follow Erik, to the edge of the world if need be and sometimes, as I stood on the docks of Ipswich I felt that if I looked hard enough I could see it out there. The money Marie had pressed into my hand bought me a room for a few nights. I remember how hard the bed was, how unlike my home that crowded boarding house was, but the tears I let roll down my face in the darkness of the night were not for all I’d left behind but for the fact that I had been left by the person who mattered the most.

_Erik._

I wasn’t able to remember many times when he wasn’t by my side and there I was, entirely alone, and with no clue how to start searching for one person. The only thing I knew was that I was mostly sure that he’d left on the _Mystique_ just days ago. Even after my brash declaration to my father that I was bound for sea, I knew I could wait for him. I could try to find work, keep my room at the boarding house, but I could not stand the thought of sitting and waiting for my fate to come to me. What if he never returned? What if he stayed at sea forever? Somehow, in the darkness of night, I convinced myself that my fate was not to rot away in that boarding house but to find Erik. That somehow he was out there waiting for me. Waiting out on the vast sea I had told my father I was running away to when I was truly running away to find the man I loved. That was how I ended up standing in line to sign up for the _Cyttorak_ , the rain pouring down, my hair soaked, wishing I had taken a better coat. That was when Captain Darkholme found me.

I had seen her walk by me, her long coat soaked with the rain, head bent down, and had taken no notice. She was just another face amongst the throngs of humanity I’d found myself packed in with. She meant no more to me than any other person walking past me. That would soon change.

“You," a voice said as a hand gripped my shoulder firmly. I startled at the touch and whipped round to find what was obviously a woman in men's clothing standing before me, her long red hair tied back. She was peering at me from under her hat, watching me with sharp, clever eyes. I found myself without words, a condition, I thought fleetingly, that would surely amuse Erik.

“Ummmm.” I had stuttered, not sure what to say.

“You don’t want this ship, young master,” the strangely dressed woman said, her hand firmly gripping my shoulder. I blinked at her words, at the way she called me ‘young master’, as if she knew that I didn’t truly belong here. I shifted my weight, felt her scrutiny and wished that I could blend in, be left alone.

“I won’t go back,” I said quickly, my words defiant. My mind was whirling. She must know my father, must have been told that I was gone and asked to bring me back if she saw me.

“Oh,” the woman laughed, looking at me with scrutiny, “I don’t take anyone back, laddie. That’s not what I’m about. I mean the _Cyttorak_. She’s not for the likes of you. Marko is a cruel master and you’ll meet a fate I would not wish upon anyone on his ship.”

I swallow and my heart plummets. Where do I go, I want to ask. If I cannot go on the _Cyttorak_ , how else do I go to sea? I cannot stay here. Erik is out there and I must find him. I want to protest, to tell her I have no other option, but then, as if she can read my mind, she tells me there’s another way.

“Captain Darkholme,” she announced, extending her hand. I took her hand in mine, surprised at the strength of her grip. Years of life at sea, the captain would later tell me. She smiles widely. “I have a spot on my ship, laddie. I think you’ll do nicely for it.”

I did not hesitate. There was something about this stranger standing in front of me, a sense of destiny. Now I stand on the deck of her ship on the hunt for treasure, looking for one ship on the wide sea and seeking my heart.

 

\--

 

Life at sea is tedious. It’s a far cry from my soft and staid life in the house of my father. I don't know what I'd expected. I had never truly romanticized it like other lads might have, dreaming of strange beasts and grand adventure. I had mainly given it no notice. It is not that I am greatly disappointed, or even enthralled. It is just endless. I am caught in a never-ending cycle of waking, working and sleeping. My hands grow calloused. My clothes start to wear and Alex teaches me how to mend them like any other able bodied sailor. When I show Alex my work he smiles and tells me I'll be mending sails yet. The pride I feel at his approval is something I had never felt from my father. I work like I have never worked in my life, mopping and cleaning, mending, any task the captain assigns me. Slowly I become just another member of the crew and one day Captain Darkholme cocks her head, squints her eyes and declares that the young master might be ready to become an able bodied sailor himself. I cannot help but puff a bit and think that it wasn't that long ago that I was trapped in my room, my head lost in my studies and now I am finally in the real world.

After this declaration I start to work with the crew more often. I haul lines with Jubilee, who glances over at me and offers a small smile. I feel a small thrill at her indication of respect. Armando slaps me on the back. I start to feel like I have something I’ve never experienced before. It’s a ragtag bunch, a strange mix of coincidence, picked by our brave captain out of some sort of vision or idea of what we all might be and that we might be it even better together. It’s a family. Something I never had from my own father. We are brothers and sisters, bound together by the sea, sharing the same space, the same ship, the same air.

Weeks pass. I do my watch, I learn more and more. I spend my spare time standing on the bow of the _Blackbird_ , staring into the distance and sometimes I feel like I can see for miles and miles, further than the human eye should be able to. Sometimes I think I can see the _Mystique_ in the distance, her masts tall and proud in spite of her age and I think if I look hard enough I can see him. He is waiting for me, gazing out over the sea himself and I wonder if he can feel me. Does he know that I’m out there, looking for him. Do our hearts call to each other?

“Will we find her?” I ask Irene one day as I stand with the wind in my face. We’re making good time that day and Captain Darkholme has promised that if we don’t find her soon, we’ll make for the nearest port. There are murmurs from the crew of good drink and good food and the mood lightens considerably.

“We will," Irene says steadily. She has become my truest friend on the ship, a confidante and somehow she seems to know me in a way that I don’t even know myself. I glance over at her, see how her eyes gaze out over the sea and I wonder at her trust of our fair captain.

“How could you know?” I ask, turning to stare back across the water. The weather is warm and I am wearing my lightest muslin shirt, loose comfortable pants and my feet are bare. My arms show the color of the sun, my nose is covered with even more freckles than I had from wandering along the beaches at home.

“I just do, young master,” Irene says cryptically. “I cannot explain it. I just do. We will find her. In this endless, barren sea, we will find her. It’s our destiny. It’s your destiny.”

“Mine?” I blurt out, then I breathe in sharply. “What do I have to do with any of this?” I gesture around me, at the boat, the crew, the sea itself. Irene smiles kindly at me, as if I am an innocent schoolboy who has asked a doltish question.

“You have everything to do with it, Charles.” Irene murmurs, her tone kind. “When Raven found you, you changed our entire course. You brought with you the _Mystique_. Now we go after her and she will be our greatest plunder of all time. Without you, we would have ended up going after smaller catch, but now we seek out the ultimate treasure. The _Mystique_ holds the King’s gold, and that gold will be ours. It also holds an even more valuable thing.”

Irene stops speaking and I wait, wait for her words, wait to discover what is even more valuable than chests of the King’s gold. She takes in a deep breath and turns to look at me and what she says causes all my breath to leave my body.

“Your heart, Charles. The _Mystique_ holds your heart.”

A gust of wind suddenly whips up over the bow, followed by the spray of a wave. The _Blackbird_ starts to roll a bit, but I do not notice. My eyes are suddenly filled with tears and I sink to the deck, my entire body trembling. Erik. We are going to find Erik. I let out a long shudder as everything I’ve been holding back comes crashing down upon me. I feel Irene’s hand on my shoulder and it is an anchor as the rest of me threatens to fall apart. And I hear her voice, a soft whisper, full of compassion and something else. Faith. A belief that the universe has led us here, to this moment. Her hand does not leave my shoulder as I let loose all my anguish.

“And when we find her, Charles. When we plunder her coffers and bring you back that part you are missing, we are done.” Irene says as I sob quietly. “Then it will be time for Raven and me to finally go home.”

 

\--

 

Our thirtieth day at sea brings our quarry within sight. We have left the port of Tahiti, our rum replenished, our galley stocked with fresh, exotic fruits. I have met people I have never dreamed of, dark and exotic, and their customs fill me with curiosity. I have filled my satchel with specimens and for the first time since I left shore, I feel that familiar curiosity fill me, the desire to know the world. Despite there being no sign of the _Mystique_ up until now, I have been content. I have found a measure of peace on this little floating island. It has become as much my world as anyone else’s.

A shout from the mast makes me look up and I see Jubilee, her hand pointing at something, her other holding a looking glass. She is held to the mast by a piece of rope tied around her waist and she is shouting out.

“She’s there. She’s there! The _Mystique_. I see her.”

My heart pounds. My mouth is dry.

“Are you sure?” Captain Darkholme shouts, looking up at Jubilee, her hand up to shade her eyes from the bright noon sun. I stand watching them, my mop in my hand, but I am no longer cleaning the deck. Like everyone else I am waiting.

“It’s her, alright. I know those masts anywhere. Three o’clock captain.”

_Erik. I am coming._

“How far?”

“A day? Maybe a little more. We’re faster than her.”

“She’s ours!” Captain Darkholme shouts. “All crew on deck. Wake up the boys even though it’s not their watch. Grab a line, Xavier... READY ABOUT!”

I drop my mop and it clatters to the ground as I scramble to grab one of the lines. I pull with all my might. I see that Irene has come to stand with me and she is pulling as well.

“HARD A LEE!”

Captain Darkholme spins the ship’s wheel and the _Blackbird_ starts to tack, her sails cracking in the wind. My muscles are aching with effort as the masts swing around. The bow of the _Blackbird_ points towards where Jubilee is motioning and the wind fills her sails. We cut through the sea, leaving a wake behind us, and I can’t help but smile as the stiff breeze blows my hair, the salt spray stings my eyes. The _Mystique_ is in our sights. We are coming for her.

I take the next larboard watch, walking back and forth across the deck of the _Blackbird_ , my skin prickling with anticipation. I am jumpy, crawling out of my skin. I might think this has to do with Erik being so close, not even a day away. I can almost feel the way his hair feels when I run my fingers through it, the heat of his breath huffing against my skin. We had one night but it’s burned into my memory, woven into my psyche. He is part of me, a part I cannot deny although he doesn’t seem to feel the same. He was able to leave me, yet I can never leave him. I will search for him until I find him and if he is no longer on this earth I will follow him into the afterlife as well.

I'm not alone in feeling restless. The whole crew is on edge, faces that are usually smiling are grim. Eyes look toward where the _Mystique_ sits and there is a nervousness I am unaccustomed to. I see Alex, normally the most stoic of the crew, frown even more than usual. Tempers flare. I do my work, keep my head down.

“They’ve been through this before,” Irene confides after Armando snaps at me and I stare after his retreating back, my mouth agape to have the normally jovial sailor be so cross. “Every time we do this we risk losing someone, and we have lost people. It’s a good crew. They care about each other. No one wants to be sending one of ours to the bottom of the ocean to be nibbled at by the fish.”

The sun has almost slipped beneath the horizon and the entire sky has turned a deep blood red. I know the _Blackbird_ will sail through the night. Captain Darkholme will stay awake, at the wheel, the wind blowing her fire-red hair. Irene will be by her side, cleaning the pistols, counting the bullets. Jubilee and I will take the next four hours then we will go below to try to sleep while Armando and Alex keep the _Blackbird_ on course. We will wake in the morning with the _Mystique_ within our sights. And then it will all begin.

When I finally reach my bunk, my body weary, I lie down but I cannot sleep. I cannot stop thinking of him and I whisper into the darkness, my words lost to the sound of the waves, the creaking of the ship.

“I’m coming Erik.” My heart clenches and I am afraid for what I will find. He could be hurt. He could be dead, another victim of cruelty that seems all too common on ships from what the _Blackbird_ ’s crew has told me. Even worse, he could tell me he will not come with me.

I know now what I have set out to do. I didn’t know when I started this journey. I only knew then that he was out there and I had this foolish idea that I could somehow find him. How naive I was, thinking that somehow on the vast and endless sea I would find one man. Now I know that it is not just that I want to find him, but that I want to tell him that there is another way. A way that Ipswich and my life in the Xavier house would never have afforded us. A way that can only be found when one is allowed to create one’s one world; one’s own rules. I know that I must tell Erik that I love him. That I am incomplete without him. I must tell him that we do not have to wander this world mere shells of ourselves, ghosts of who we might be. We do not need to be alone. We can be together.

I stare into the darkness and I feel unbidden tears start to leak from the corners of my eyes then roll down the side of my face. My breath catches and I manage to choke back a sob. I think of Erik, of why he might have left me and I know that I am the one who can show us the better path. I just need to find him and when I find him I need him to believe me. Me. Charles. The one who has always lived in books, who has ignored the world in favor of learning. I have found within my grasp the key to our freedom. The key to our life. Because without him, I am not living.

Somehow I sleep. I don’t know when I close my eyes and slip into the darkness, but I wake to filtered light and the warmth of the morning. At first I roll over a bit and grumble, unhappy to find that my sleep has ended so soon. Then I remember. The _Mystique_. I scramble out of my cot, my bare feet hitting the wood floor, then rush aloft, bursting through the hatch only to see Irene grinning at me, as if I’m a fool. I am a fool. I rush to the bow and there she is in the distance. Proud as she ever was and I recognize those masts. The _Mystique_. The ship that brought me my Erik. The ship that took him. The ship that will be ours soon.

“Ever used a pistol?” Jubilee asks from behind me. I startle at the sound of her voice. She’s not prone to unnecessary conversation, if any at all.

“Uh, no,” I stammer. She hands me one. I put out my hand and take it, its weight heavy in my hand.

“Best you learn, laddie.” I startle again because while her tone is as brassy as ever, I see her mouth quirk every so slightly in what appears to be a bit of a smile. She reaches out and pats me on the back and I know with her acceptance that I have finally found a place in this family. Now to find my heart.

Irene shows me how to shoot as we rush towards the _Mystique_. I think of how far I’ve come, how I am leagues away from my desk in my bedroom. I think about the _Mystique_ and how she feels like she has always been part of my life. My father’s shipyard built her and now her son will board her and plunder her. If only Brian could see me now. I am most likely already disowned but how I wish he could know that he son has ended up a full-blown pirate, riding the high seas, pillaging and looting at will. I feel the wind in my hair, the spray of the sea. I am alive. I glance over at Irene as I hold my pistol steady and she gives me a broad smile that makes her eyes crinkle.

“Yes, young master," she says, “you have indeed come far.”

“Charles.” I say, “I am no one’s master. I am Charles.”

“Charles.” Irene says warmly.

 

\--

 

We end up entirely surprising the _Mystique_.

We shadow her for a day or two, watching her, waiting for the right time. On the night of the second day Captain Darkholme calls the crew to the deck. She tells us we will use the grappling hooks to board.

“Does everyone have their pistols?” She asks. I nod, feeling for mine where is sits in the holster on my hip.

“Aye.” I answer with the rest of the crew.

“I know we’re smaller than the _Mystique_ which is why we’ll use the cover of night. And we’re faster. I’ll guide the _Blackbird_ to her side and then everyone throw up their hooks. Irene will stay at the helm. We’ll first find the captain. He’ll probably be drunk in his quarters. Once he’s disabled, it should be quick work to subdue the crew.”

“Aye," I answer along with the others.

The boarding is a strangely controlled chaos. We all do our jobs, climbing silently up the side of the larger ship. My hands burn from the rope and my arms ache, but I am not about to fall behind the others. My brow is damp with exertion as I pull myself up over the side of the _Mystique_. Jubilee is further down the deck and she gives me a curt nod. I steal off in the same direction as her, both of us heading towards the captain’s cabin. The night is quiet and clear, the only light is from the stars that cover the sky as far as the eye can see. We steal quietly across the deck and I see that Alex is now with us and Armando is by his side. Jubilee gestures to us from up ahead and indicates she’s found the cabin. I feel for my pistol, patting my side, then pull it out of its holster. My hand trembles. Maybe this will be as easy as the captain says it will be. We’ll find the captain, take over the ship….

“Hoy!” I hear Jubilee yell and I see the flash of her pistol. Suddenly there is a figure in front of me, almost invisible in the darkness. I let out my own yell and pull the trigger on my pistol. I hear a soft grunt and I know I have hit my target. I cannot pause to think about what has just happened, whether or not I have killed a man. I can only move forward, following Jubilee’s lead. There are yells from all around us. This isn’t going to go as easily as I had hoped. I pause for a moment and clumsily reload my pistol, and I know I am too slow. It’s dangerous. Someone could come up on me and with one sweep of a cutlass, it would be all over. Somehow I manage to load it, remember what Irene had taught me, then I peer around and see that Jubilee is just ten feet away, cutlass in one hand, pistol in another, a sneer on her face. I watch her cut down a couple of ratty looking sailors. Without hesitation, I run up to stand behind her.

“I have you covered,” I yell over the din. She looks back and gives me a smile.

“Like I need it,” she yells back, and I can’t help but return her smile.

We advance up the deck, me with my pistol, firing now and then, pausing to reload. Jubilee uses her cutlass more, firing intermittently. The sailors who challenge us are either lacking in skill, drunk or apathetic because it doesn’t take much for us to join up the with the rest of the boarding party. Alex and Armando are waiting for us outside the captain’s cabin. Armando gives us a jaunty nod, as if he’s just been out for a pleasant Sunday stroll instead of fighting his way across the deck with pistol and cutlass.

“Fine day, eh?” Armando says when we come upon him.

“The best," Jubilee answers, flashing him a smile. She wipes her brow with a handkerchief she had been carrying in her back pocket. I can’t help but smile. I am soaked in sweat, I have blood splashed across my face, yet there is this strange sense of elation among us. We are so close to our goal. Close to the gold. Close to freedom. Close to Erik. It won’t be long now.

“Time to go in.” Alex says somberly. The rest of us nod. We know that the Captain will be behind us. We know we have a job to do. Jubilee steps forward and we all fall back. With a slight grunt, she kicks the door inwards and we surge forward, our pistols and cutlasses drawn. Then we all stop.

It’s as the captain had predicted. The captain of the _Mystique_ is sprawled across a bed, his trousers half undone, and his head, that has been tipped back, snaps up at our entrance. Kneeling between his legs is a boy about my age, and suddenly I realize what Captain Darkholme had saved me from that day on the docks. His head his bent over and his mouth is wrapped around what appears to be the captain’s very large, erect cock.

“I said I did not want to be bothered!” the Captain yells as we burst into the cabin, but his words quickly fade away as his eyes widen at the interlopers who have disturbed his repose. His face shifts quickly from annoyance to fear when he realizes the meaning of this interruption.

“You’ve been boarded," Armando says, stepping forward, holding his pistol steady. The boy between the captain’s legs scrambles backwards and the larger man reaches down and tucks himself into his trousers.

“I expected this would happen soon or later.” the captain says.

“Of course you did, Uriah.” a voice says from the doorway of the cabin. We all turn to find Captain Darkholme standing in the entrance of the cabin, her red hair wild around her face, Irene standing by her side.

“King’s gold too tempting for you, Darkholme?” the man says, his eyes narrowing.

“More like it’s time for you to retire, Shaw.” the Captain responds, walking between us and towards where the other man sits. His eyes narrow and he spits onto the floor of the cabin.

“That’s what I think of your suggestion, Captain Darkholme.”

“We’re going to pick you and the _Mystique_ clean,” our captain says, her voice steady. At that moment I know that she is the kind of person I would follow to the ends of the earth - a true leader. “Take the King’s gold. Do you think anyone will hire you after that, Captain Shaw? Your career is over. If the King even lets you live.”

“Sod off Raven,” Shaw growls and in the dim light of the lanterns on the walls, he seems to grow two feet taller. The air crackles with his anger but our captain doesn’t flinch.”

“You’re done, Shaw.” Irene growls from behind her.

“Still her precious pet, Irene?”

“Better that than your slave,” the first mate spits out.

“The gold.” Captain Darkholme says smoothly. “I can tear the _Mystique_ apart looking for it, or she can live to sail another day.”

“The aft hull.” Shaw sneers.

“Excellent. Armando, stay here with the Captain. Xavier and Jubilee, come with me to get the gold to the _Blackbird_ …”

My heart his pounding. My mouth is dry. I look at the Captain, then I glance over at Irene, who gives me an almost imperceptible nod. Before I even know it, my mouth is open and I am uttering one word…

“Wait.”

“Xavier?” Captain Darkholme says slowly. I know that despite her bravado, we really only have a short window to get the gold off the boat. I know that this gold is what is going to buy my captain and her first mate their freedom. I know it means the world to her, but still, I have not come here just for the gold.

“Young master.” Irene says. My eyes shift to her. Her steely blue gaze holds mine for a long moment. Then she says softly, so softly that I think I might be the only one who hears it. “It’s okay,”

“Erik!” I cry out, turning to look at Captain Shaw. “Where is Erik?"

“What do you talk about, boy?” the man spits out.

“Erik.” I say again, “Erik Lehnsherr.” I swallow, although my mouth is so dry there is nothing to go down my throat. “He’s...he is...he’s my friend. He’s on this ship. Where is he?”

Captain Shaw laughs, and it’s a horrible, hollow sound that makes my skin crawl.

“Oh, boy, you think I know my crew? You think I can tell you where you can find them? I do not care about my crew. They serve a purpose and when they no longer serve it, we keelhaul them.”

I feel a surge of energy. My hands clench and unclench, nails dig into my palms. I want to reach out, to squeeze this man until he pops, until he screams and begs for mercy. I don’t. I just stand, staring at him.

“Where. Is. He.” I say slowly, and I barely recognize my own voice, low and deadly. Where is Erik?

“I do not know,” Shaw laughs again, then suddenly his face shifts and his eyes grow wide. I watch as a smile spreads slowly across his face. “Wait, the German? Is it the German you seek? I think his name might be Erik. Oh, sweet boy. You love him, don’t you? You long for his touch. That is why you seek him?”

I do not answer. Shaw continues.

“The filthy sodomite has been tied to the mast for almost a fortnight.”

The words are said with a smile, a tone of condemnation and I wonder what Shaw thinks of the half clothed boy who was between his legs when we burst in. Then I think that Erik is nothing like this man, who bleeds cruelty.

“Go to hell.” I hiss, my face hot, my heart racing. Shaw’s face grows even more pleased.

“You may not find him alive.”

My heart sinks. Erik. Erik, dead, needing water, taking beatings and I can’t stop the way fear clenches in my chest. I have lost him.

“I will kill you.” I hiss, then without realizing it, I am leaping towards Shaw, my hands reaching for his neck, and I know in that moment that I will kill him. I will crush him, squeeze every bit of breath, make him pay.

“Charles!” I hear a voice yell and hands are grabbing at my arms. I am pulled back and I hear my voice screaming his name over and over. Those hands hold me in their grip and I fight, whipping my head back and forth, struggling to get to the man who has hurt my Erik. Then I hear her voice in my ear.

“Not this way. This is not your destiny. If you do this, Charles, you and Erik. You will no longer travel together.”

Irene. I still, my chest heaving, and my cheeks are wet with tears. Irene is gripping both my arms.

“Today is not his day, Charles. But it will come,” she says, looking at Shaw.

“Let me go," I spit out, rage bubbling up.

“No.” Irene says, her voice strong and unwavering.

“Let me go to him.” I say, and I mean it. Shaw can wait. Erik needs me. I need him. Suddenly I am consumed by the need to find him, to touch him, and I cannot wait. “Please.”

I feel Irene release me. My legs buckle underneath me but I somehow manage to stand up and turn to look at Irene and the captain. They gaze back at me with strong and steady eyes. For a long moment we are all silent.

“Go.” Captain Darkholme says to me, and I startle at the sound of her voice, then, without hesitation I dash out of the cabin.

Erik. I am coming. I am coming for you. Please be alive. Please know that I’ve been out there, searching. Please be alive for me. It’s all I want. My mind races as I run up the deck. I can hear steps behind me and I know that Irene follows me. My lungs ache. I run, thighs burning, legs pounding hard on the wood, I trip and stumble, but still more forward.

_For you. My love, for you._

I can’t see in the pitch blackness. There are strange sounds around me but I ignore them. I must get to him.

“Erik!” I yell as I approach one of the masts. There is a figure tied to the bottom. I can’t see if it is him right away but as I get closer, yelling his name, I see the man’s head come up. Suddenly the clouds break apart and the moonlight pours over the deck of the _Mystique_ , casting everything in a strange pale gray, and in that soft light he turns his face to me and our eyes meet.

I stop.

_Erik. My love._

I stand, staring at the man I love. His face is gaunt, covered in what is close to a beard. I can see that his limbs are twisted, no doubt from whatever punishment the captain meted out. But I am struck by none of this. What holds me are his eyes. They are Erik’s eyes. Pale and glittering, they grow wide as they see me, and my heart almost leaps from my chest.

“Erik!” I yell, and suddenly my legs are propelling me forward, my mouth dry, and I cannot wait another second to get to him. I run up to him and he sags forward, held up only by ropes that bind him to the rough wood of the mast.

“Not again.” Erik mutters, casting about with his eyes, refusing to meet mine. I can see in the pale moonlight that his lips are flaking, rough, parched. “I cannot see you again. Please, leave me be. Let me die. I cannot stay here any longer.”

My hands go to his shoulders. My mouth opens and I cry out his name. Erik. My love. It’s is me. It is really me. I shake at him. His eyes meet mine and I see a man on the brink of insanity.

“I love him," Erik says, his voice cracking, his eyes casting about wildly, “I always have, and he haunts me now. I cannot do this. I cannot stay here any longer. I must go. I must leave this world. Take me. Please.”

I hear myself sobbing, feeling the wetness of tears on my cheeks. I lean forward and touch my lips to his cheek, leaving the softest, chastest of kisses there and Erik’s eyes squeeze shut.

“So real," he whispers.

“Because I am.” I say softly, kissing him again, another soft touch.

“I’ve dreamed of this. Of him.” Erik whispers, his voice a mere creak, his eyes still closed.

“As have I,” I say, moving to kiss him on the mouth, the lightest of kisses, far less than I really want to at that moment but I cannot help but worry that it might be more than he can take. Erik jerks at the touch of my lips. His eyes fly open.

“Charles?” he whispers. “My god, Charles? Is it you?”

I bring my hands up and cradle his face in them, leaning in to touch my forehead to his.

“I have found you, my love.” I say quietly, my voice low, meant for only the two of us. “I searched and found you. In this wide sea, this unchartable desert of endless water, I found you.”

A tear rolls down Erik’s cheek, a precious tear from a man who is parched, deprived of water, yet he sheds this tear for me.

The world explodes.

A loud crash behind me. I turn my head. I see dark smoke starting to billow into the night sky, blotting out the stars, and underneath it are wicked red tongues of fire licking upwards. My mouth goes dry. The captain, Irene, the rest of the crew. I drop my hands from Erik’s face and my fingers go to the ropes that hold him to the mast. I pull at the ropes, my fingers feeling thick and clumsy. I turn to look at the fire again and it’s almost doubled in size. I can smell pungent smell of burning wood and I start to feel the heat on my back. The _Mystique_. She is burning. There are screams from all around me and my throat starts to sting.

“Charles.” Erik says and at the sound of my name my fingers still. I raise my face to his and what I see there startles me. It is raw, bare, and utterly devastating. I know what he’s going to say before the words come tumbling from his mouth, a thick rasp from a throat dry from dehydration.

“Leave me. Save yourself.”

I close my eyes and a tear leaks out. Does he not know. I have followed him to the ends of the earth. I have found him when it seemed impossible. Doesn’t he know. I knew the moment I woke up and found he had left. I knew that he was my destiny. Without him, I have no life. I will not leave Erik here to die in the fire.

My eyes fly open.

“No.” I say, swallowing. “We stay together, Erik. Now. Forever.” I pause, my eyes holding his. “Forever.” I say again.

“You will die.”

“I’m dead without you anyway.” I say, biting back more tears. “Don’t you see, Erik? Don’t you see that it’s always been you.”

“No.” Erik says, turning his head. “I am not good for you. I can’t give you what you deserve.”

“You are everything.” I answer. “My everything. I will not leave you. Not now.”

We say nothing, and his familiar blue eyes meet mine, our gazes locked. I can feel the heat growing behind me. I don’t care. Burn me to the bone, let my skin melt away. I will not scream. I will just watch Erik as the flames consume me, because without him I am entirely lost.

“I love you.” I finally say. Erik startles at my words and suddenly he lets out a great, heaving sob, as if floodgates have been open, and he’s saying my name over and over, telling me how sorry he’s been. My hands go back to his face, cradling it and I feel this sense of peace steal over me, and I know that this moment is just as Irene told me. I was meant to find Erik and now I am meant to die with him.

“Xavier!”

My head whips around at the sound of my name. I find Armando standing in front of me, a broad smile on his face, as if we are spending a day at the park, not aboard a burning ship.

“For godsake mate, take this cutlass and cut down your lad. The Capt’n is waiting for you.”

I release Erik and raise up my hand just in time to catch the cutlass that Armando has tossed my way. I turn to Erik, cutlass in hand, and think what a sight I must be. Charles Xavier, academic, student of nature, the boy who spends his time dreaming, is standing with cutlass in hand, about to cut his lover down from a mast, a fire raging in the background. I smile at where life has brought me, and with one swift stroke, I cut through the ropes. Erik falls forward and the cutlass clatters to the ground as I lunge and catch Erik in my arms, my thighs trembling as I hold his weight.

“Come on.” I say, “It’s not far now.”

Just then Jubilee bursts from the melee of smoke and fire, her mouth covered with a handkerchief. She glances at me then, without hesitation, rushes to Erik’s other side and slips her arm around him.

“She’s going down.” Jubilee shouts, and I know she means the _Mystique_. I wonder if Shaw decided to take everyone down with him. I shudder as I recall his cold eyes.

Alex runs past us. “To the _Blackbird_!” he yells. I start to run, almost dragging Erik behind me. I can feel his weight heavy on me, feel how he stumbles along. We make our way to the starboard side where I know the _Blackbird_ waits and find one of the grappling hooks. Jubilee and I skid to a halt and Erik leans heavily on me. I can feel his chest heaving with exertion. His head hangs down and I try to ignore the worry that swells in my chest.

“Erik!” I say. He doesn’t respond. I shake him a little, say his name again. We are so close to freedom. So close to my dreams. I think about Irene. She said this is my destiny. He must make it down that rope, to the _Blackbird_ , to safety.

“You have to get down the rope.” I say, my fingers going to chin, tilting his face upwards until our eyes meet.

“Charles.” Erik says, as if seeing me for the first time. “You found me.”

“I did Erik.” I say desperately. “I found you, but we have to go, my love. We have to get off this boat.”

“Boat?” Erik glance around, as if he is just now realizing where he is. “Oh, the _Mystique_.” He glances upwards, searching the sky that is now filled with thick smoke. “Where is he? Father? Where have you gone?”

I will never know why I say what comes out of my mouth. I don’t really mean to say it, but it just comes out.

“He has let you go, Erik. He wants you to go, to go with me. It’s time, my love. It’s time to say goodbye.”

I think about the _Mystique_ , about what this ship has meant to both of us. It is somehow fitting that we are finally on the cusp of a new life and our old life is being consumed by flames.

“He has?” Erik says softly. He looks at me again, then looks back to the sky.

“Erik. Please.” I plead. For a long moment I think he’s lost and I almost tell Jubilee to go without me. Leave us and I will hold the man I love until the last breath leaves my body, and I will look into his eyes so they are the last thing I see.

“Charles.” Erik says, looking at me, and he sounds more aware. “He’s gone. After all this time, he’s finally gone.”

“And you can come with me.” I say, not entirely sure if I’m following what Erik is saying, or if it’s dehydration and exhaustion talking. All I know is that I want him to come with me. I want him to take that rope and let us lower him to the boat where I can see Irene and the Captain waiting. I want to finally take him home, although I’m not sure where that is. I just want him.

“Yes.” Erik finally says. I feel my body sag with relief and my cheeks are wet from the tears that start to roll from my eyes.

“Down the rope.” Jubilee says, sounding a bit exasperated. I remind myself that while I am ready to die for love, the rest of the crew of the _Blackbird_ do not want to give up their lives, and more than likely there is a reward beyond all of our wildest dreams waiting for us, as long as the Captain and Irene got the gold before the fire. Erik jerks at the sound of her voice and then he steps forward, stronger than I realize, takes the rope in his hands, then disappears over the side. I rush to the side and look down, watching as he makes his way to the boat below. Jubilee sends me next, then she follows. I glance over to see that Alex and Armando are in a second boat. Irene and Jubilee pull the oars and we swiftly make our way back to the _Blackbird_ and away from the burning hulk that was the _Mystique_. I watch, mesmerized by the brightness of the flames, and wonder at the end of the great ship. My father built her. Erik’s father sacrificed his life for her. She took Erik from me twice. Now she goes to the depths of the ocean.

I feel a touch on my hand and startle, turning to see Erik smiling at me. It’s a small, wan smile full of pain, but a smile nonetheless. Someone has put a blanket around his shoulders. His face is thin, the fire casting an orange glow on his skin. He is in so many ways a pale imitation of the man who had set me free with his touch, his kisses, his fingers on my skin, but he is still Erik and he is mine. Mine forever.


	5. Erik part II

I have dreamed of him more times than I can count. Charles standing in front of me, taking my hand. Charles smiling at me in that way only he can. I have raised my head to the blazing sun and only seen him. I have whispered his name through my parched and cracked lips. I have dreamed of him so much that I started to feel that maybe he was a dream in the first place, that I had actually never existed outside the long days tied to the mast, the rough ropes around my wrists cutting into my skin. Everything before now; Ipswich: being pulled from the sea, the Xavier house, Charles laughing at me as we sprawled next to the hearth, was just a product of a trance I’d been in which was now broken.

They tied me to the mast in the fourth week we were at sea. It wasn’t for anything terrible. A combination of my reputation, Captain Shaw having a good memory and my inability to keep my mouth shut. They had found one of the men on his knees, another man’s cock in his mouth, and there had been talk of throwing both of them off the stern. I was the one who stepped in. I was the one who said they should be spared. They were valuable, able bodied seamen, an investment. Punish them but let them live. I remember how my heart had pounded as Shaw listened to my plea, regarding me with those cold and calculating eyes. My efforts were in vain. They ended up dead anyway and I was the one who ended up flogged tied to the mast.

I don’t know how long I have been tied here. My hands are swollen, my fingers numb. My legs ache and shake from trying to stay up. Nighttime is respite. Daytime brings the chance of more flogging, more cruelty to endure. Still, not everyone on this damned ship carries the same cruelty of its captain.

Shamus is here. Like me his fate is tied to that of the _Mystique_. He visits me in the dark, uncorking his canteen and pouring water into my dry mouth. I should protest but the water is so sweet, cooling, a welcome respite from the never-ending thirst that threatens to drive me mad. He brings me bits of dinner, some meat or bread. I chew them and swallow them, thank him. He is most likely saving my life. Or maybe he is simply delaying the inevitable. Still, I cannot turn away his kindness.

When Shamus is not there I am left with the pitch black of night. All I have is the ceaseless creaking of the _Mystique_ , the flap of her sails in the wind and the never ending swathe of stars across the velvet sky. That is when he comes to me. I close my eyes and my head hangs down and I dream. I dream of his scent, his touch, his sun warmed skin under my hands. I explore his body over and over, skimming my fingers over expanses of freckles, feeling his curves and planes, carding my hands through his soft hair. I wake time and again crying his name and every time I am filled with so much regret and longing that I can no longer feel the pain of my bonds, the strain of being forced to stand on my feet day in and day out, of being eternally hungry and thirsty. All I can feel is the pain of missing him.

I am broken.

I have been breaking for a long time, crumbling bit by bit, torn apart by a love that cannot be named. Now I am truly broken. Not my body. No matter how cruel Shaw is, no matter how much I long for the peace only death can bring, my body is strong. It is what Shaw cannot see that has finally been destroyed.

Shaw will not kill me. I am his play toy, a poster boy for the crew to see what happens when he is crossed. Still, I pray every night to a god I truly no longer believe in. Please. Let me die today. And if there is a heaven, I know that is the only place I might see Charles again.

I don't know how long I have been up here. Days. Weeks. I had started counting them at the beginning, but it wasn’t long before day blended into night and I wasn’t sure of anything beyond the fact that I was still alive. The one thing that has remained constant is the great bird that hovers above me. He never leaves me, and I sometimes wonder why he cannot just let me go. Let me slip away into the peaceful blackness where there are no dreams, no love, nothing left. He floats above the ship during the day and sits upon the mast at night and sometimes I cry out to him using my father’s name. Jacob. My father who was the first to ever love me. Please. Let me go.

Shamus stops coming. I fear for him. I strain to hear news of him and finally two sailors deep in conversation drift near me. I hear enough, snatches of sentences in hushed tones. He was caught stealing bread. Bread for me. He’s in the brig. I hope his fate is better than mine.

I get frailer. While Shaw is not going to kill me, he also doesn’t care if I die. I start to see things. There are figures lurking on the edge of my vision, and I turn my head, hoping to catch one in my sight, but I never find anyone standing there. I cry out. Cry for my mother. Cry for my father. Cry for him, for Charles. My skin feels rough from the wind and sun. I would weep but I have no tears left, my body holding onto as much water as it can. Finally I can no longer cry out anyone’s name. My voice is reduced to a raspy whisper that no one can hear. Slowly I start to fade away.

It will be any day now. Any day and I will leave this world. I will finally find the peace that has eluded me. Every morning I raise my head to the rising sun and wonder if this might be the day I breathe my last breath. Every night I close my eyes and hope for the quiet that only death can bring.

I die. At least I think I do. There are flames. Fire is licking along the _Mystique_ as if she is passing through Dante’s Inferno itself. Of course this ship is bound for hell. She always has been. She began her life baptized in my father’s blood. She will end it with my bones charred by her flames. I raise my head and watch in wonder as the flames dance, red and yellow, sometimes even blue. Then I hear my name.

“Erik.”

My eyes fly open. It’s Charles come to haunt me again. The world is cruelly taunting me with his voice as I start to slip away.

“No.” I croak, my mouth and throat stinging from the acrid smoke. I shut my eyes. Not again. Not him. Not now. I am so close to finally being able to let go and he’s here, a specter from my dreams. “I love him.”

Finally the truth is spoken aloud. I love him. I always have. I always will. I will take that love with me to the grave. Hands grip my arms. So real. As if he’s touching me again.

“Please.” I say thickly, my tongue swollen and cracked, my mouth like cotton. “Take me now. I cannot do this again.”

My head drops down. I no longer have the strength to hold it up. The ghost of Charles leans forward and I feel his lips touch my cheek, a soft, fleeting brush against my rough skin.

“So real.” I whisper, lifting my head at the touch of a ghost.

“Because I am.” he says. He kisses me again. It’s like a dream. One I never want to end. Maybe death has finally taken me. Maybe we are finally together again. Then he kisses me on the mouth.

My eyes fly open.

“Charles?” I choke out, because this is not some sort of dream. Those lips on mine, the ones pressed to to my own cracked, wind-chapped lips, I would know anywhere. They are his. His hands come up, real, strong and cradle my face and I feel myself sob although I have no tears left to shed. Charles, my Charles, touches his forehead to mine and I can no longer tell myself this is a dream.

“I have found you, my love…”

Suddenly there is fire and a loud crash. I try to look towards the sound but I cannot twist enough. I turn back to Charles. My Charles, and suddenly I am filled with shame. He cannot do this, cannot be here. I am not what he deserves. I will break him. He must leave me here. Leave me to die. I open my mouth. I beg him to do what is right. I am so close to death anyway, mere heartbeats away. Leave me here, live your life, be free of what I bring. I feel torn apart, shattered, but he must listen to me. He must go. He must leave me to meet the fate I deserve.

“I will not leave you.” Charles says, gripping my face fiercely. “Not now. Not ever.”

I want to protest, want to tell him that he cannot love me, but before I can, he opens his mouth, and with eyes that are brimming with affection, he tells me the words I have been longing to hear.

“I love you.”

A floodgate bursts and I sag forward, letting out a loud guttural sob. It is that moment when I know I cannot ask anything else of him. I cannot ask him to leave me, to abandon me and live a life where I am not part of it. I am knit to him, bound to him forever and I understand that we either leave now or the _Mystique_ becomes our grave, but either way, our fates are joined. I can no longer fight my feelings. I can no longer struggle against the love I feel for this boy who has suddenly become a man more worthy than any other I have ever known.

“Yes.” I whisper, my voice barely audible, and with that word I am his forever and I will not be parted from him.

I don’t remember much of what happens next. There is yelling and people are hurrying us forward. I hold onto Charles like he’s a lifeline, following him. At some point I glance upward and through the smoke and flame I see the great Albatross. I stare at him for a long moment then Charles pulls my arm and we surge forward again. We reach the rail of the _Mystique_ and Charles climbs up onto it, looking back towards me. I look at him. His hair is wild, his face is blackened with soot and dripping with sweat. His eyes beckon me, beg me and he’s saying something about a rope and a boat. I cannot respond. I just stare at him, at the man who I have loved almost as long as I can remember. I tear my eyes from him and look up towards the dark night sky one more time, searching for the ghost of my father.

He is gone.

I will never know if my father could finally leave because he knew I was safe or if he left because I had finally made my choice. Would Jacob accept who I am, that I love another man, that I long to spend my nights and days curled next to him? Or would he shun me like most of the world? I will never know, but I know that after that night I never once again saw an albatross hovering above any ship I was on. The giant birds would come and go, searching for scraps, eating the cast offs from whaling vessels, but none would stay. I know it was Jacob who left me that night, finally able to rest, along with the _Mystique_ , who plummeted to the bottom of the sea, but I will never know why. No matter how many times I might tell myself it doesn’t matter, I will always wonder if he could finally go or if I had pushed him away because I loved another man.

We row towards a small ship sitting on the water. My hand is still clutched in Charles'. Someone hands me a canteen and I greedily take in gulps of clean, cool water.

“He is starved,” I hear a female voice to my right spit out.

“Shaw is a cruel captain.” Someone else says bitterly. A man. “I should know.”

“He is dead now.”

I want to smile at this but I cannot make out the faces of these strangers in the dark, so I do not know if I am safe to show my pleasure at this news.

“And you got the gold Captain?” Charles asks. I feel a weariness creep up on me and suddenly I can’t keep my head up. I long to let it fall onto the shoulder of the man sitting next to me, but I do not know who we have fallen in with and I do not know if it will be safe. The last thing I need is to put both of us back into danger.

“Aye, young master.” the female voice says again. I startle in surprise and it’s the first time I realize that this is not any ordinary crew I have fallen in with.

“So where do we go now?” Charles asks. My head feels heavy and I can no longer keep it up. Damning the consequences, I let it fall onto Charles' shoulder, half expecting him to jerk away. Instead his hand comes up and his fingers card through my hair. His touch soothes me and I feel my eyes start to flutter shut.

“He’s worn out.” someone else says. I do not open my eyes. The feel of Charles' fingers in my hair, against my scalp, makes me feel almost human again and I never want it to stop.

“He’s been through a lot.” the Captain says, her tone pinched. “We got to him just in time.”

“Yes.” I hear Charles murmur, his voice rumbling in his chest. “and for that I am thankful.”

My eyes close and I despite everything I have been through, I feel the most content I have ever felt. The dinghy carrying us towards the small ship rocks gently on the calm night sea, the hulk of the _Mystique_ glows orange behind us and the man I love runs his hands softly through my hair. I left out a long, deep sigh and with that I slip into sleep. I do not know what will happen next but I know I have finally found what my heart has been longing for and I will no longer fight it.

 

\--

 

I don’t know what wakes me. It might be the sunshine coming down from the open hatch above me. Maybe it’s the shouts from the deck. Whatever it is, I jerk awake and suddenly I am back on the _Mystique_ and Shaw is coming to get me and I have to get away, or I have to fight. I cannot go back onto the mast. I cannot take another day. I am shaking, my breathing coming out in hot puffs, and my heart beats wildly as I search for a weapon, anything to keep them from taking me again. As if in a dream I hear myself shouting out, telling my potential captors to get away from me, to leave me be or I will kill them. I swear I will kill them. I scramble into the corner of the bunk, trying to shrink away from danger, to become small, but I know nothing can save me now.

“Yelling like that will wake the dead, sailor," a voice says. My head jerks up and it’s not Shaw or his men who stare at me, but a blond haired man with twinkling blue eyes. I look around and slowly start to realize that I’m not on the _Mystique_. It’s a ship of some sort but not the _Mystique_. I let out the breath I did not realize I'd been holding. Suddenly my memories of the night before come pouring back. Fire. Smoke. Yelling. Charles.

_Charles._

“Charles?” I start to ask but my voice is hoarse from yelling and disuse.

“Of course he’s here, mate. You’ve been sleeping for days now, plagued by fever and who knows what, and he’s barely left your side.”

“He’s...Charles...he’s my friend.” I stutter, fear gripping me. Whoever these people are, they cannot know what Charles means to me. If they find out, he will be dead. I cannot let that happen. My breathing speeds up, my heart pounds and I pray this man will accept my lie and move on. I hope he will not think to question me further, to wonder why my friend should refuse to leave my bedside. We just need to get to shore, get off this ship and then we can go somewhere together, find a way to build a life. I will do this for him.

The man smiles kindly at me and I am taken aback by his reaction.

“Oh mate,” he says, “It’s not like that here. You’re safe.”

I blink, not entirely sure what the man in front of me is saying. Of course it’s safe. It’s away from Shaw, but if someone finds out what I am, who we are, safety will be the thing of the past.

“Alex,” the man says, extending his hand. I put mine out, trying not to look at the wounds across my knuckles where my skin has split. I feel my heart start to slow. I take in a deep shaking breath. He has accepted my words, that Charles is just a friend. We are safe for now.

“Erik.” I say. He smiles and lets out a small laugh.

“Oh, I know who you are.” Alex says. “I’ll get Charles. He’ll be glad you’re finally awake.”

I do not wait for the man to return. I swing my legs from the bunk and place them on the floor then stand up gingerly, testing my own strength. They almost buckle beneath me but after a moment they feel strong enough for me to try taking a few steps, one at first then another. I look down and find I am dressed in a clean, simple shirt and someone has put new trousers on me. Gone are the clothes that stunk of my own filth and for that I am grateful. I am clean, no longer smelling of feces and urine. Someone has bathed me. Gripping onto the edge of the bunks I slowly make my way to the ladder that leads up to the deck. I pause at the bottom because I hear the distant murmur of voices. Then, after taking in a deep breath, I steady myself and start to climb upwards, one rung at a time, pausing to gather my strength. Finally I poke my head through the hatch and look around.

The air is warm and the sun is shining almost too brightly, like it’s wont to do in the late afternoon. I blink in the glare, my eyes adjusting, used to the darkness of the hold. I look out over the railing of the ship and see a wide expanse of brilliant turquoise waters, clearer than anything I’ve even dreamed of. A light breeze ruffles my hair and I close my eyes briefly, savoring the way it feels on my skin and glad to still be able to feel something as simple as a breeze. In a way it reminds of me Ipswich on a nice day, the wind gusting gently off the sea, and I am suddenly gripped with urgency to see Charles, to make sure he’s okay. I pull myself up onto the deck and straighten to a stand.

One of the voices belongs to someone I presume is the captain. She is standing at the helm of the ship, both hands on the wheel, gazing out over the sea, her long red hair blowing behind her. Beside her stands another woman, at least I think she’s a woman. She’s wearing men's clothing and her silvery hair is cropped short but she does not entirely cut a man’s figure. I stare at her for a long moment, then, as if she knows I am standing there, she turns and stares back at me. Our eyes lock and I am not sure what to make of her until her face is transformed by a broad smile. She tilts her head and says something to the captain, who turns her head to look at me then she too smiles. I look around, trying to find Charles, trying to figure out what to do next and the older woman starts to walk towards me.

“Erik.” She says to me, her voice warm, and she extends out a hand. I stare at it for a long moment then reach out and take it, and before I know it she is pulling me into an embrace, wrapping her arms around me and hugging me tightly. I hear her whisper in my ear, and I’m not sure but I think she says ‘we’ve been waiting for you’, then she pulls back and smiles again.

“Welcome home.”

Home. I do not return her smile. I have no home except for one man, and I don’t know where he is. I fight back a feeling of unease. If we must escape, I do not want to worry the crew of this ship too early and cause them to throw us in the brig.

“And you are?” I ask tersely. The woman laughs.

“I am Irene.” she says, as if that should explain everything. “And I have been waiting for you. We all have.”

We? My mind spins. I can no longer hold back what I really want to know.

“Charles?” I spit out, and I sound more desperate than I want to sound. “Where is Charles?”

“Him the most, Erik.” Irene says cryptically. “He’s been waiting for you for a lifetime.”

“What?” I ask.

“There.” she says, looking over my shoulder and gesturing towards the bow of the boat. I turn and see that Charles is standing on the bow, staring out across the sea, and my breath hitches at the sight of him.

My Charles. My love.

I do not know if Irene says anything else. I can’t hear anything except the wind in my ears. I want to surge forward, to run to him and take him in my arms, but it is too dangerous. Instead I turn and slowly start to walk towards him.

Charles. My Charles.

His hair is longer, blowing in the wind, and I see those chestnut highlights. He’s sprouting a small beard and it’s red in the sunlight. I wonder what it might feel like against my skin. He looks tall and strong, standing on the edge of the ship. I try to think of the boy I left behind, buried in his studies, unaware of the world, and I realize that that Charles Xavier is gone. In his place is a man, strong and wirey. A man who saved me from death. A man who loves me. A man I love.

I swallow. My heart feels as if it will burst.

I will take him from here. We will run away somewhere where no one knows us. We will be together. I promise him this as I walk towards him. When I am mere feet away I finally dare speak his name.

“Charles.” I say just as a gust of wind whips across the bow, but somehow he hears me. His head whips around and our eyes meet, then a smile spreads across his face and before I can stop him, he is rushing towards me. My hands come up. It’s not safe. Not here. Not now.

“Erik!” Charles exclaims. He stops in front of me. His hands come up, fingers touch my face, and I shirk away. Not here. Not now. Wait until we are safe.

“No.” I say sharply. “Don’t. Please.”

“Erik.” Charles says sharply, his face surprised by my rejection.

“It’s not safe.” I whisper. My heart aches and I long to reach out and take him in my arms, but instead I sink to the deck, onto my knees, and I start to beg, overcome by fear for the man I love. “Please, my love.”

Do not die. Do not even get hurt. If they know, they will hurt you. They will hurt me. I cannot bear this. Not when we have found each other again. Wait and we will be together. I close my eyes, hope no one has thought this strange, that maybe they think I am simply overcome with emotion at seeing my friend. Suddenly I realize that Charles has sunk to his knees also and I feel him grab my hands, gripping them in his own.

“Erik. Oh, Erik, my love. You have been through so much. Don’t you see? You are home. We are finally home.”

I blink. What does Charles mean 'home'?

“You are my home," I say, unable to stop the words from tumbling out. “I know that now. I never should have left, but I was afraid. I will never leave you, but not here. We must take care, we must…”

Charles leans forward and presses his lips to mine. I startle and pure panic grips me. I start to pull away but Charles releases my hands and his hands come up to cradle my face. I freeze. My body starts to shake. We will be killed. There is no doubt.

“No.” Charles says softly, his voice full of emotion, “You don’t understand, Erik. You are home. We are home. We do not have to seek safe haven. It has found us. This, right here, is home.”

He kisses me again, a soft, chaste press of the lips. I shudder and I feel tears start to roll down my cheeks and slowly I begin to understand what Charles is trying to tell me. He pulls back and looks at me and I see his eyes are as blue as the sea ‘round us. My heart starts to slow once again and I take in a deep shuddering breath.

“Charles.” I say softly. He smiles in that sweet manner that I know is only for me and suddenly I am transported back to the shores of Ipswich, to sunny days when all I could do was love him, before the shame came crashing in.

“It is here we can make our own destiny, Erik.” Charles whispers. “We do not have to run or hide. This ship and wherever we go from now on are home. You do not have to seek it. We are here. Together.”

I am shaking.

“Home?” I repeat, wondering if I have ever understood the meaning of the word before now.

“Yes.” Charles whispers. “Home'. You are my home, Erik, and I am yours.”

I start to weep in earnest. Tears roll down my cheeks as I let go of all the pain I have been holding inside. I weep for all the time I have squandered, gripped by fear, unable to see a different way. I weep for myself and for Charles. I weep for what we have lost and what we have now found. All my emotion pours out, spilling forth in great, guttural sobs. I lean into Charles, dropping my head into his shoulder and I feel his hands come around my back to hold me. Slowly I let it all go until I am resting my full weight against him and he cradles me like one would cradle a child.

We have found each other. We have found a different way. We have found a life together.

We have found home.

~fin~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there will be an eplogue


	6. Epilogue: Charles and Erik

Erik stands on the edge of the cliff overlooking the sea. It's early in the morning and the chill of night has not been fully shaken off by the break of day. He stretches his arms upwards, reaching towards the clear blue sky, not a cloud in sight, then lets them fall to his sides, shaking his hands and feeling his body relax.

He comes here every morning. He stands above the clear turquoise waters of the Caribbean that surround their island home, strips himself of his clothing and stands naked at the edge of the cliff. No matter how many times he does this his mind never fails to wander to a different cliff, a different coast and what more often than not feels like a different lifetime.

A breeze blows and Erik's bare skin pricks with goosebumps. He lets loose a shiver. How quickly he has adjusted to this exotic climate, and what might have been unbearably warm in Ipswich leaves his skin chilled. It does not matter. The water is warm and it is waiting for him.

Erik glances down. The sea below is deceptively peaceful, a deep turquoise indicating it is good and deep. He can almost feel the way the wind will whistle past his ears as he dives towards the smooth surface below. He thinks maybe he will swim towards the reef today, gaze in wonder at the brightly colored fish. It's like living in a dream.

His whole life feels like a dream at times. He wakes every morning with Charles curled into his side, warm and real. No matter how many mornings it's been, from one to an entire lifetime of them, that moment between sleeping and waking never fails to thrill Erik. It is that moment, when his brain is still cottony with the vestiges of sleep, that he feels has somehow been given too much.

Charles never fails to nestle further into Erik's side in those early hours, when the sun is peeking over the lush green hills to the east and the birds are just starting their morning songs. Sometimes he wakes just enough to ask Erik if he must go. 'Stay' Charles whispers, sleepily mouthing Erik's bare, sleep-warm skin. Erik longs to sink back into their bed, into the arms of his beloved, but every morning he fights this instinct and carefully extracts himself from their shared bed and makes his way to stand on the edge of this cliff.

It is a ritual. It is reparation.

Erik had wanted to die the day he met Charles. He hadn't truly wanted wanted to live again until the night the Mystique burned and sank, and Charles had cut him down from that mast where he had been left for dead. Now he goes to the cliff every day, dives off and feels the water close around him, repeating that day in Ipswich so long ago over and over, his penance for the blindness he had suffered with for so long, trying again and again to cleanse himself of his sins. How different things might have been if he hadn't been so blind. They have lost so much.

Charles does not care. He tells Erik this when he holds him in the night as Erik sobs for all he has lost, for the shame and blame he had carried and the time they stole from him.

"It is our story," Charles whispers in Erik's hair, "yours and mine, and I would have it no other way."

Still, Erik cannot escape the nagging feeling that he should have been stronger, should have found a way. He cannot escape the feeling that he has been broken in a way that can never be entirely repaired.

So he comes to the cliff every morning. He offers himself to the sea, body and soul, and Charles teases him that maybe the people of the island don't want a daily show. Erik smiles. Perhaps Charles would like to keep Erik all to himself. Erik promises that no ones sees him standing naked in the morning sun. Charles burrows into Erik's bare chest and sighs, knowing he cannot change this, cannot keep Erik with him, no matter how much he wants to.

Sometimes Erik is amazed at how untouched Charles is by all that has happened. While Erik's heart feels like it is stitched up, barely held together, Charles' somehow remains whole. There are the obvious differences: Charles' unscarred skin, his undisturbed dreams. He has never been afflicted by the doubt that planted itself in Erik's soul. There is also the less obvious, that Charles can find contentment while Erik is plagued by restlessness, unable to hold still. He worries that Charles has sacrificed too much, left too much behind. He knows that he has, but only because of his own choices.

Erik walks to stand on the very edge of the cliff. He flexes his toes, pushes up on the balls of his feet. The muscles of his calves bunch with this motion. Life off the Blackbird has not left him soft. He is as sinewy and muscular as ever before. He thinks of Charles and suddenly he longs for his lover's embrace and he almost steps away from the edge, turns and makes his way back to the small house they built together when they had first arrived on the island. He aches to feel Charles' fingers on his skin, to fall back on their bed and let Charles kiss every inch of his body. The ache starts to become the dull throb of desire that Erik often feels when he thinks of Charles and Erik feels his cock start to stir at the thought of all the ways they have discovered to physically love each other. If Charles were here right now, Erik would turn and tell him to take him, to do whatever he wants with him. Here and now, damn what other people think. Let them whisper about the strange ways of the Europeans. Erik knows he will not turn to find Charles staring at him, his eyes hot with lust as he takes in Erik’s muscular ass, his strong backside. He will not see Charles lick his lips in the manner Erik has come to understand means that no matter what he is doing, it won’t be long before one of them is buried deep in the other, their sweat-slick bodies sliding against each other, both of them at a loss for words and only the grunting groaning sounds of pleasure filling the air. Charles does not interrupt Erik’s respite. He knows that this time is for Erik and Erik alone.

It is time. Erik thinks of all the regrets he lives with. He thinks of not having enough time with his father. He thinks of Shamus, burning alive in the brig as the Mystique slowly sunk into the sea. He thinks of how he has never felt like enough anywhere he’s been, that he was never good enough for the Xavier house and too good for the likes of Shaw. But most of all he regrets that he was unable to see through the haze of shame and self hatred that his love for Charles was anything but good and pure. He doesn’t know if he will ever forgive himself for almost destroying both of them.

Erik takes in a deep breath. There is only one other way he can let this go, and that is in the arms of Charles. His Charles. It is when he feels the clench of orgasm that is a prelude to release, his muscles tightening, followed by his mind finally letting go of everything. It is then that he feels entirely clean and for long moments afterwards, wrapped in Charles' arms, every part of his body shaking, he can forgive himself.

The first time he’d ever felt free was that day in Ipswich when he thought he would finally join his father. Now he feels free again as he leaps off the edge of the cliff, pointing his head towards the water and plummets. The wind blows through his hair and it is a familiar moment of shock when his body slices through the water. He does not feel afraid. He only feels peace. Erik sinks down into the water and looking up he can see rays of sunlight illuminating the surface. He spreads out his arms, feeling how they are buoyed up in the water and he feels light and free as he floats in the depths. He wonders what it would be like to stay here, to remain weightless and suspended, not a care in the world, then he thinks of Charles. Charles will be waiting. He will be up from their bed, still in his nightshirt. He will be toasting bread and making porridge and when Erik walks in, his clothes clinging to his still damp body, Charles will give him the same glance of appreciation he offers every time and will ask if perhaps Erik has bothered to bring him a fish this time. Erik will smile and go to wrap his arms around him, pressing his front to the smaller man’s back and Charles will tip his head back, rest it briefly on Erik’s shoulder, his blue eyes looking up into Erik’s own and everything will feel alright.

Erik starts to swim. His strong arms glide through the water, his legs kick and he heads towards the surface, breaking through into the sunshine, shaking the salt water from his eyes. He floats there for a moment, blinking in the brightness, then he starts to make his way towards to reef. He feels for the knife he has strapped to his calf and thinks that maybe he will bring a fish home for breakfast today and maybe soon he won’t need to come here every morning. Perhaps there will come a day when his ghosts will finally leave him.

Erik swims for a long while, skimming above the sharp coral, his strong arms propelling him through the water. The morning sun climbs higher in the sky, the light growing brighter. Erik stops swimming and floats in the water, tropical fish nibbling at his toes. On the horizon he sees the spouts of whales. Erik thinks of Charles and he knows it's time to return. He starts to swim towards shore, towards where he had thrown his bundle of clothes off the cliff, leaving them to rest on the white sandy beach, waiting for his return. His muscles ache from exertion as he makes his way towards the shore, the water growing warmer as it becomes shallower. Soon the beach is in sight. Erik knows this stretch of beach. Only a few more feet and he'll be able to stand. He is tired, his strokes slow, his legs ache, and just when Erik has almost reached where he can stand, the sea reminds him that she can take what she wants, when she wants.

Suddenly Erik is pulled under. The first thought that goes through his head is that he's been caught in a rip tide. He is pulled away from the shore, under the crystalline sea and down, down towards the white sandy bottom. Towards his death. Erik opens his mouth to cry out and it fills with salt water. He struggles against the current but it pulls him deeper and further out. He thinks of Charles, of his blue eyes and the love they hold, of his laugh, of the freckles that scatter across his sun-kissed nose and shoulders. Erik lets his body grow limp as he sinks further down. Maybe his is his end. Maybe today he will die.  
  


\--  
  


Charles sits at the desk by the window. He picks up the quill that has been lying on the piece of paper for the last fifteen minutes, holds it between his fingers, then sets it down again. The curtains move gently in the light breeze that blows off the harbor and Charles inhales deeply, taking in the scents of the tropical flowers that bloom just down the way combined with the never-changing smells of the sea. He sighs heavily then leans down to look through the glass that sits on his desk, staring intently at the object below, a white waxy flower he’d plucked from a bush during one of his long walks just days ago and was sure he’d never seen before. Even that doesn’t help the feeling of being unsettled that has been plaguing him since he had woken, once again finding himself alone in bed. Charles cannot shake the feeling that something is wrong.

Erik is gone. It’s like every other morning and although Charles longs to keep his lover in bed, to wake slowly together, to nestle into each other and explore each other in the sunlight, he never asks Erik to stay with him. Erik has demons that he cannot seem to excise and his morning ritual somehow keeps them at bay. Charles does not pry. He just watches Erik’s long frame unfold itself from bed then shuts his eyes and slows his breathing, pretending to still be asleep.

He should be in the kitchen but instead he sits at his desk, waiting for Erik to return, longing for his touch. Missing him and feeling a bit sheepish that mere hours apart can create this ache. Charles shakes his head, as if to shake off the sight melancholy that clings to him.

There is a sound from outside, the dull thump of feet running up the path. Charles stills, for a moment thinking it could be Erik running back to him, but the stride is too quick, the feet too light upon the ground. He stands and peers out the window to see one of the boys from the village running towards the house. When he sees me his face, brown from the sun, breaks out in a wide smile.

"Mister Charles!" The boy cries out, "she's home."

Charles smiles back, Erik briefly forgotten. A smal thrill runs through him. She is back. The Blackbird has returned. This means there will be rum, perhaps some exotic spices for his kitchen, but more than that, it means the return of his family. They have been gone for six months and he has missed Armando's easy laugh, Alex's quiet strength and the way Jubilee will on rare occasion offer a quick but sad smile.

It has been a year since the Mystique returned to Ipswich and changed his life. A little less since Charles walked away from his childhood home, yet he rarely thinks of Ipswich, his life there or even his father. His home, and his heart, is here, on this island. It is here with Erik and he cannot stop the pleasure he feels with every casual kiss that’s dropped onto the top of his head or quick squeeze from Erik’s hand as he passes by. Every moment is highlighted by what they almost didn’t have and he wonders if there will ever come a time when he will feel the normalcy of taking this man for granted. But it is not just Erik. It is this life they have made. It is the Captain and Irene, their house not far from the one Charles and Erik share. It is Armando waving as the Blackbird slowly sails out of the bay. It is the freedom they have all found. It is the family they have become.

“We make our own rules,” Irene had said once, not long after they had finally arrived on this far-away island. “Others have to live by rules they do not make, but we don’t have to accept those same rules. We can make our own. We can live how we want, love who we want.”

“We make our own world," Charles replied, taking the silver cup of rum that sat before him and tipping back, letting the liquid burn down the back of his throat. Irene had looked at Charles with something akin to approval.

“The young master has truly grown up," she murmured. Charles rolled his eyes and reminded her once again that he was no one’s master. Just Charles. Nothing more and nothing less than one person in this world.

“Keep believing that.” Irene had replied, and as always she had this way of seeing things differently, as if she knows what might happen or where Charles might end up. All Charles knows is that here he sits, at his desk, looking eagerly towards the bay in hopes of spotting the masts of the Blackbird, and he is content.

Charles picks up the quill one more time then places it back down. His mind whirls with too much for him to put his observations to paper. His thoughts wander to Erik and he pictures his lover swimming in the sea, his long, lean body cutting through the waters and, suddenly, Charles misses him. It has only been a matter of hours apart and Charles longs to hear his voice again, to watch his face break into a smile. He takes a deep breath and tells himself to be patient. Erik will return. He always does. Still, there is something Charles cannot shake, that feeling of waking one morning and finding Erik’s bed smooth and unwrinkled and Erik gone. That moment still haunts him. He doesn't know if he will ever stop being afraid that he will lose him.

There is a knock at the door. Charles turns from his desk and sees Irene standing in the doorway. In her arms is a girl, about two years old. Her chubby hands are wrapped around Irene’s neck. She has the look of an island girl, her long dark hair shining with gold highlights left by days in the sun, but down her forehead runs one long white streak of hair, making her striking by any means of the word.

“Marie.” Charles says warmly as he gets up from his desk chair. “Hello my darling girl.”

Marie had come to live with Irene and Raven after an accident took the life of her father, one of the village fishermen. Her mother had died in childbirth two years before and the little girl was left with no one. The captain had turned her nose up when Irene showed up with the girl in tow, telling Irene that they already had enough mouths to feed, but Irene had persisted. Charles had reminded Raven that she was wont to pick up strays and it wasn’t long before the little girl had wormed her way into their hearts. Irene had looked at her lover warmly and told her that sometimes fate cannot be denied. The girl was supposed to come and live with them.

She came with the name Marie and Charles thought that maybe this girl having the name of his beloved housekeeper, the only one to see Charles for who he truly was, and the one who encouraged him to find his heart, was not coincidence. Perhaps Irene was right and Marie was meant to come into their lives, a joyful reminder of how much life they all had left to live. Now he and Erik were part of her family too, and sometimes she would come over and spend the day, Charles reading to her from what books he had brought with him from Ipswich, Erik fashioning wooden toys with his knife that become more and more intricate as he practiced.

Marie squirms from Irene’s arms and toddles over to Charles, putting up her arms and asking to be picked up. Charles does not deny her request and he scoops her into his arms, putting his nose to the top of her head and inhaling deeply. He never tires of how she smells, sweet and warm like the sunshine.

“She’s back.” Charles says to Irene, who smiles at him.

“I heard.” She responds, although Charles knows Irene has probably known for a few days that the Blackbird was on her way back. He has learned not to question how his dear friend knows these things. He only knows that Irene’s vision is something he has the utmost faith in. “Is he out swimming?” Irene asks, glancing around.

“Every morning.” Charles sighs. “I do not know what he runs from, Irene. I am happy and he is happy, yet he keeps running. It’s as if he cannot accept that we are finally safe.”

Irene walks over to the corner and picks up one of the toys Erik made for Marie and hands it to the little girl. Marie takes it into her chubby hand then squirms to be let down, so Charles leans down and places her on the swept plank floor.

“His demons are strong, Charles. He does not share the same understanding of the world that you and I have. He does not realize that he can stop fighting them.”

Charles sighs heavily. If only Erik’s pain did not hurt him so. If only he could accept that this is who Erik is, but he cannot stop wanting it to be better. He cannot stop wishing that for once the man he loves could truly find rest.

“But he will, Charles.” Irene continues. “He will find the peace he seeks and it won’t be long from now. You have given it to him. He just needs to understand that all he must do is reach out and take it.

My eyes fill with tears as I take in Irene’s words.

“He will?” I whisper. Irene nods.

“Yes, Charles,” she says, walking over to him and placing a hand on his shoulder. “He will.”

Charles lights the stove and makes tea. Hevand Irene sit in companionable silence, drinking tea and watching Marie play. They talk about her garden and what might be on the Blackbird when she arrives. The plan was to take her ‘round the Cape. Charles hope for books. Irene says some good rum would be nice. After a long while she picks up Marie and heads back to her house and Charles is again left alone.

It is almost midday. Erik should return soon. Charles has grown accustomed to him being gone for hours in the morning but as the sun climbs higher in the sky He always finds himself growing more antsy. He misses him. He cannot help this. Finally He hears the sound of footsteps on the path again, but this time they are slower and heavier. Charles feels a sudden surge of excitement. Erik is home. He takes his tea mug and places it in the wash pan, then goes to the doorway and leans on the door jam, watching Erik’s long, lean figure as he makes his way towards their house.

Charles always loves this moment. Erik’s hair is dark and wet and his clothes cling to him slightly. His stride is easy, carefree, as if he no longer has a care in the world and Charles knows that the demons have been kept at bay for now. Erik never sees Charles right away. He sometimes is whistling a random tune, sometimes looking down at the path, preoccupied with some random thought. No matter, he always looks the happiest Charles sees him on any given day.

There is always the moment that Erik looks up, and Charles savors this, the split second of unbridled joy that comes when their eyes meet. It never ceases to fill him with wonder that Erik is here with him and not suffering on a ship or dead at the bottom of the ocean. It’s a daily reminder of what they have been through and what they mean to each other. It is a look of pure love.

Today is different. Erik does not look at peace as he walks towards the house. His figure is tense. Charles swallows the worry that wells up in his throat. What if the demons are still there? What if Erik is about to tell him he cannot do this anymore, that he is leaving.

“Did you bring me fish this time?” Charles calls out, knowing the answer already. He tries to make his voice casual but he knows it trembles a bit. Erik never brings him a fish. Erik does not answer but his stride increases and he starts to hurry towards Charles. Charles stays where he is, letting his weight rest on the door jam, and there is something about this moment that is different from all the others, a kind of urgency in Erik’s movements as he approaches. Erik steps up onto the porch, his bare feet creaking across the boards and suddenly he is standing before Charles and Charles’ breath hitches at he stares upwards.

"Charles," Erik says, his eyes wildly searching Charles’ face. He smells of the sun and the ocean and it is all Charles can do to not lean forward and inhale his scent. Charles feels an undercurrent of desire start to uncurl from his belly, slow and thick.

"Yes?" Charles whispers, for despite the fact that today is no different than any other day, it somehow is not the same either. It feels like this moment calls for hushed tones.

"I love you," Erik spits out urgently, as if he has been holding back those words. Charles looks up into his face because these are not words that Erik typically holds back, but the way he says them now, they carry such weight. Such meaning. Charles thinks back to what Irene had said earlier, that Erik was not going to fight forever.

"I know," Charles whispers. Is it possible that Erik has finally excised his ghosts? Charles’ hand comes up and traces along Erik's strong jawline and Charles sees a muscle twitch, as if Erik is deep in the grips of some untold emotion. "Oh my darling, I know."

“No.” Erik gasps, and the word sounds as if it’s being ripped from somewhere deep inside. “I mean I love you Charles. I mean that my heart beats only because yours does. I mean that I would die without you. I almost did today. The sea dragged me under and I knew. I am nothing without you by my side. To love someone like I love you - there is no dishonor in that.” Erik lets out a short, sharp sob filled with emotion. “There is no dishonor.”

 _Oh my love,_ Charles thinks. _You have finally accepted us. You have finally stopped fighting._

Charles leans forward and rests his head on Erik’s damp chest, nuzzling into the fabric of his shirt. He wants to offer reassurances, to tell Erik that he truly does know. He has always known, from that first day they met when Charles had pulled him from death’s grasp. They are each other's destiny and there is no shame in that. Instead he does something entirely different. He turns his head into the damp fabric of Erik’s shirt and places a soft kiss on it. His hands come up and his fingers start to undo the buttons, one by one, pushing the fabric back to reveal Erik’s bare skin. Charles places a second kiss on Erik’s chest and he feels Erik shudder at the touch of his lips. He does not care that they are still standing on their porch, does not care that anyone passing by might see them.

“I know.” Charles says again, “Let me show you.”

Charles remembers another time, when he had made Erik take off his shirt and stared in horror at the fresh wounds on his back, when he had cared for each one, cleaning it and treating it with salve. He remembers how his fingers had felt Erik’s warm skin and he slowly became aware of how beautiful his friend truly was. Charles can remember that night in fine detail and now he whispers the same word he used after he had stared at Erik in wonder.

“Magnificent.”

Charles pushes Erik’s shirt back and finds one of Erik's nipples. He leans down and quickly swipes across it with his tongue and Erik stumbles back a bit, letting his back rest on the door jam and Charles follows him, his mouth not leaving that tight little bud, his teeth nipping slightly.

“Take me to bed.” Erik whispers, his voice sounding raw.

“Of course,” Charles says almost matter of factly, his voice muffled against Erik’s skin.

Charles takes Erik’s hand in his and leads the taller man across the sitting room of their house, through the doorway off the small kitchen and into their bedroom. Charles still cannot believe it is theirs, still thinks he might wake and find the whole thing a dream. How did he manage to end up here with the man he loves. He stops at the edge of the bed and Erik turns to climb in.

“No.” Charles whispers. “Let me undress you. I want to take care of you."

Erik stays standing, his arms hanging by his sides. Charles lets his eyes roam up and down Erik, taking in the way his hair curls damply at his collar, the soft ginger stubble on his jaw, his long, strong neck. He skims over strong thighs, and Erik is wearing the same loose pants so many sailors favor, his calves bare and dusted with hair. The room is quiet except for the soft sound of Erik breathing in and out. Charles lifts his hands and his fingers go to make quick work of undoing Erik’s remaining buttons, then he slides his hands up and pushes the shirt down Erik’s shoulders, feeling how muscular they are under his palms. Erik lets out a shudder at Charles’ touch. The shirt falls to the floor and Charles moves on to the tie at the waist of Erik’s trousers and as he works it loose, Charles notices that his fingers are trembling.

It’s not like they haven’t had sex before. Once Erik was recovered, all he could do was touch and kiss Charles and Charles had been a willing and able partner. After all, he had dreamed of Erik’s hands on his body, of the way he made him feel. But there was something different on this day, as the warm air blows gently through the window of their home and Charles slowly undresses Erik, pulling his pants down and leaving Erik standing naked and obviously aroused.

“Charles.” Erik gasps, “I…”

“I know.” Charles says. He knows that Erik can finally accept the love that Charles has been trying to give him since that fateful night in his bedroom in Ipswich. It is a love that Erik has been running from for longer than Charles even realises but now Erik has stopped running. Charles steps forward until he and Erik are separated by just mere inches. He reaches out and slides his fingers along the sharp edge of Erik’s collarbone, enjoying the way the other man’s breath hitches. Charles presses his palm against Erik’s chest and his skin feels hot, almost burning. He holds his palm there and feels the steady thump of Erik’s heart.

“No more morning swims?” Charles asks, his voice low and and quiet.

“No.” Erik answers.

“You found what you’ve been looking for?”

Erik smiles but Charles can see that the edges of his eyes are wet with tears.

“Yes.” Erik says.

“And?”

“You. I found you.” Erik blurts out, as if he’s been holding those words back forever. They are released with a sob, a sag of the shoulders of the strongest man Charles has ever known, and suddenly Erik is apologising over and over again, telling Charles he’s sorry. He says he was wrong, that he never should have left, that he was afraid and ashamed and he could not see that he would never be able to live without him. “I’ve been running away.” Erik gasps as his face floods with tears. “All my life I’ve been running, from the day you found me until this morning. Even when I knew I had you, I haven’t been able to stop, and today when I thought I would die, never see you again, I realized that running away doesn’t make anything better.”

“Oh Erik.” Charles says. He brings his hands up and cradles Erik’s face between his palms, and when Erik tries to turn away, Charles will not let him. “I know. I’ve watched you run again and again and I am so glad that you finally see that there is nothing here to run away from. We...we are safe. Thanks to the Captain and Irene, thanks to the Blackbird, thanks to the Mystique, we can live here safely. You don’t have to run.”

“It’s not just being safe, Charles.” Erik chokes out. “Even if no one can hurt us here, even if I can go to sleep in your arms and wake in them, I cannot get the voices out of my head. I cannot stop hearing that I...we...are dirty. Criminals. I cannot stop thinking that my father would never approve. I am not you, Charles. I have been afraid. I could not stop.”

“My love.” Charles says gently. He wants to wipe everything away, take away the pain.

“No.” Erik says forcefully. “Let me tell you. I have to tell you. Then today I was out on the ocean. It’s the only place I can find peace Charles. I can’t tell you how much it pains me that even you can’t give me peace when I love you so much. But out there, floating in the water, in the quiet, I feel as close to god, to forgiveness as I can ever get. Then the one place that is safe for me tip urged on me and I thought for a moment that I might never see you again. I realized that I cannot live like this. Because if I keep living like this, I will lose you."

Charles blinks. He realizes that he too is now crying. He also knows the truth in Erik's words. He knows there would be a time when his patience would dry up and he would no longer be able to wait for Erik to vanquish his demons.

"And you, Charles, you are someone I cannot lose." Erik pauses and takes in a long, deep breath. He squeezes his eyes shut tightly then opens them again. Then, his voice shaking, he continues. "I told you when you rescued me that you were my home, but I have been running away from that truth since that day. My heart cannot believe I deserve any of this. Not after what I've done. To you. To myself. But you are not just my home. You are my North Star, my Polaris. You are how I find my way in this world and without you, I am lost. I know that now. I am here, Charles. I have finally come home."

Charles is still cradling Erik's face and now he leans forward and places a soft chaste kiss on Erik's dry lips. He pulls back, letting Erik's face go, and stares at this man who has finally found enough safety and love to lay his soul bare.

"For this," Charles murmurs, "I am glad."

Erik sags forward, as if whatever has kept him standing has snapped and Charles' arms immediate go around him, supporting his weight and they stay like that, Charles holding Erik, as Erik shakes and sobs, letting out all his anguish in one fell swoop. At some point Charles manages to steer Erik onto the bed, pushing him backwards onto the soft cover, crawling over him and settling behind him, holding him through the storm of sadness and regret that seems endless. After a long time, when Erik's sobs have subsided and his heart beat has slowed and they have laid there, breathing together for what feels like an eternity, Charles buries his face against Erik's shoulder blade. He ventures a kiss, pressing his lips to Erik's hot, clammy skin. He feels Erik shift slightly, giving an almost imperceptible stretch and Charles feels his cock start to stir. He places another kiss, then a third, tracing the line of muscle across Erik's back, then shifts himself upward in order to reach the sinewy curve if Erik's neck. Instead of kissing, Charles bites down lightly, scraping with his teeth, then flicks out his tongue to taste the saltiness of Erik's skin.

Erik moans. It's a ragged, desperate sound and Charles feels a swell of arousal that has him pressing further against Erik's back, seeking, wanting. He sucks on the same spot and is rewarded with a hiss that sends Charles' hips twitching.

Suddenly Charles realizes he is still clothed. He rolls away from Erik and quickly pulls off his soft linen shirt and canvas trousers, throwing them into the floor. Before he can return to cradle Erik in his arms once again, Erik is rolling himself on top of Charles, his weight pressing Charles into the mattress. Erik's hand finds Charles', weaving their fingers together, their legs tangle and their lips crash together with the force of a gale wind.

It's a sloppy, wet kiss, their mouths opening and their tongues sliding against each other. This time it's Charles' turn to moan, deep and desperate for more. This seems to tip Erik over the edge because he almost plunders Charles' mouth, kissing him over and over until Charles' head is spinning. His hips press upwards of their own accord and Charles grips Erik tightly, wanting him closer than humanly possible. He wants to melt into the other man until he's not sure where he ends and Erik begins.

After what seems like an eternity Erik pulls back and stares down at Charles. Charles is sure he's a sight, skin sweaty and flushed, chest heaving, lips shiny with saliva, swollen from kisses. He feels desperate and thoroughly debauched, wanting to grind up against Erik, to beg him for more. The look on Erik's face stills him. It is love and pain radiating so strongly that Charles can almost feel them himself. He chokes out Erik's name as he stares up at him.

"How could you love me?" Erik murmurs in a voice filled with awe. Charles blinks back his tears at those words and silently vows to spend the rest of his life making sure Erik knows the truth. He starts by whispering back the only words he can.

"How could I not?"

With those words Erik kisses Charles again, but this time it is slow, tender and almost renders Charles in two with its sweetness.

“I want you inside me.” Erik whispers against Charles' lips before kissing him again, soft and delicate, as if Charles will break. It is ironic that Erik is the most broken of the two of them yet he treats Charles as if he is somehow fragile.

“Yes.” Charles whispers back and he pushes up against Erik, the palms of his hands going to Erik’s bare chest. Erik yields, rolling off Charles and onto his back, sprawling across the bed clothes, his chest heaving with his exertions. He looks beautiful and wrecked at the same time, eyes heavy with lust, cock full and erect, skin red from heat and from the marks of Charles' fingers.

Charles loves Erik’s skin. It’s brown from the sun, from the hours he spends swimming in the sea every morning. It’s crisscrossed with scars, each one an external mark of what Erik has been through, the burdens he carries. He never loses an opportunity to touch it, and this moment is no different. His fingers reach out and start to trace the scars, marks from the cat-o-nine tails, burns left by the ropes. Erik’s eyes flutter shut, as if Charles’ touch is too much, but Charles does not stop. Erik is his, and this is his right, to trace the physical evidence of their journey, to try to ease away the pain others have caused. He is taken back to that first night, sitting on the bed in his Ipswich bedroom, his fingers slick with medicinal salve, and how it felt to touch Erik for the first time in that way. He remembers how much he had felt as he soothed each mark with salve, how his chest had swelled with emotion, his eyes had watered with unshed tears for all the pain his friend carried. He didn't’ know it at that moment, but that was love. Pure love.

If Charles could travel back in time, could take those moments away from Erik. If he had found him sooner, if he had only known they could have this life, he could have saved the man he loves from having these scars. But he cannot. This is their life and they are the sum of their experiences. Instead he leans down and starts to kiss each one. It is his ritual, a regular observance he gives Erik. Whenever he has Erik laid out on their bed, and they are not gripped by urgency, he never fails to start by trying to soothe away the pain those scars represent.

“Inside me.” Erik grunts, arching into Charles’ touch and clearly not impressed with the pace Charles has chosen. Charles smiles, unwilling to match his lover’s urgency. If he is going to give this to Erik, he is going to give to him him in the way he chooses.

“Patience, my love.” Charles laughs against Erik’s skin. He places a hand on Erik’s hip and gently urges the other man to turn over. Erik whines in protest but capitulates without much more encouragement, rolling over onto his stomach, his face buried in one of the pillows. Charles takes a long moment to let his eyes wander over Erik’s scarred back, to look at how his muscles ripple under his skin, to take in his strong, muscular ass, his thighs thick from swimming. When Charles has had his fill he ranges up over Erik and starts kissing his way down Erik’s spine and with each touch Erik writhes under him, grips the pillow and uses it to muffle his whines. Charles cannot help but smile, feeling powerful at how he can make this man tremble. He kisses the small of Erik’s back and then, using his fingers to pulls apart Erik’s cheeks, he drifts lower. Erik pushes upwards into Charles’ touch and he starts to beg, saying ‘please’ and ‘now’. Charles dips his head and places one single kiss on the pucker of Erik’s anus. He’s rewarded by Erik bucking upwards, his body asking for more. He dips his head down and places a second kiss, this time followed by a swipe of his tongue and this time Erik actually shouts out Charles’ name. This urges Charles on and he dips his head a third time and starts to lave Erik’s asshole with his tongue, licking and swiping, until Erik is bucking, begging, whining and pleading all at once.

“Fuck me, Charles. Just fuck me.” Erik hisses between profanities.

“Like this?” Charles asks, moving to nip lightly at one of Erik’s ass cheeks.

“However you want.” Erik answers.

“I want to see you, my love.” Charles says, “I want to watch you when you come.”

“However you want.” Erik repeats with a whine. Charles smiles. He pulls away from Erik and is rewarded with a quick sound of protest. He reaches under the bed and finds the oil they keep there for such occasions. Dipping his fingers into the jar, he returns his attentions to Erik’s anus, running slicked fingers across it, making the other man jump. Charles presses a finger at the entrance and then quickly slips it inside. He pumps his finger in and out, then starts to gently circle it, carefully and slowly loosening up Erik, who doesn’t often take his cock. Erik twists and turns at Charles’ touch, pushing up into it, clearly wanting more. Charles pulls his finger out then quickly pushes in two slicked fingers.

“Uhhhhhh.” Erik groans. “Good. So good.”

This time Charles moves his fingers with purpose, seeking the spot he knows will make Erik feel good, and when he finds it, fingers pressing across its smooth surface, Erik lets out a long, drawn out cry. Charles smiles and he feels powerful, that he can reduce Erik, his strong, stoic Erik, to a whimpering mass, with just the touch of his fingers. Erik pushes back onto Charles fingers, seeking that touch again, wanting more, but Charles is aching and his cock is leaking, and he is going to end this inside the hot tightness that is Erik, so he withdraws his fingers and Erik mutters curses only a sailor would know.

Charles' hand goes to Erik’s hip once again and he nudges at it until Erik takes the hint and rolls over onto his back. What Charles sees gives him pause. Erik’s eyes are dark and stormy, his pupils blown wide with desire. His hair is damp, there is a sheen of sweat on his forehead. He is breathing noisily through his nose as he stares up at Charles. He looks wrecked, wanton, and so very ready. Charles licks his lips. He takes his hands and places them on Erik’s knees then pushes them upwards until they are up near Erik’s ears and he is almost bent in half. This leaves Erik wide open, waiting for Charles, slick and ready. Charles crawls up the bed then, leaning forward, bracing himself by one arm, he takes his aching cock and, holding it steady, he slowly pushes into Erik. Charles stares into Erik’s eyes the entire time, watching as they are flooded with both pain and pleasure, watching his mouth fall open into a perfect ‘O’ as Charles fills him. They are both still and Charles quickly puts his free arm down to hold himself steady as he hovers above Erik, his muscles trembling finely from the strain. Erik’s eyes flutter shut as Charles stares down at him and he grimaces slightly, then he opens them and stares up again. In that moment Charles knows that this man is everything to him. He is the sun, the moon, the stars. Erik had said that Charles was his North Star. Erik is no less. He is how Charles finds his way in life. He is worth everything.

“Move.” Erik whispers into the quiet of the room. Charles feels a hot tear run down his cheek.

“I cannot.” Charles answers, overcome with emotion.

“Fuck me.” Eriks says, his tone growing more forceful. “I need this.”

Charles opens his mouth to answer that he truly cannot move, that he is paralyzed by the passion he feels for this man, but before he can, Erik bucks his hips upwards causing Charles’ cock to slide even deeper inside him and suddenly Charles feels lust ripping through him and he can’t do anything but what Erik asks. His hips jerk forward, once, twice, and Erik feels so good, so tight around him, Charles can’t stop himself. Erik is slick and Charles’ cock is oiled and wet with precome. He starts to pump in earnest, setting a fast pace, and the quiet of the room is now punctuated by the slap of Charles' thighs on Erik’s ass. Erik is pushed up the bed by the force of Charles’ thrusts as he plunges his cock even deeper into Erik, driven by how good it feels and how much his body wants this. His hips ache, his thighs clench and he could not stop his body from thrusting over and over again. Beneath him Erik tightens his jaw and lets out a long, rumbling hum through clenched teeth, but Charles is silent, the only sound he makes is his fast breathing, as if he’s running a race. He feels his brow grow damp, sweat trickles down his temple, and his legs start to ache. Still, he pounds into Erik and Erik starts to moan, to beg, telling Charles to fuck him, to fuck him harder.

Suddenly, Charles slows his pace and Erik lets out a sound of protest until Charles thrusts forwards again, this time grinding his hips in a slow, almost languorous manner and Erik lets out a yell.

“Oh Charles. My love. Fuck me like that and I’m going to come.”

Charles smiles down at Erik.

“Yes.” Charles says softly. “Come for me Erik.” He drives into Erik again, slow, grinding, and Erik’s head falls back as he hits the spot. Charles wants to speed up but he forces himself to stay with this unhurried pace. Erik’s eyes flutter shut as he give into the pleasure coursing through him. Charles reaches between them and takes Erik’s hard cock into his hand. It’s wet from precome so there is little resistance when he slides his hand up and down the shaft and after two or three strokes, Erik bucks up against Charles, wrapping his arms around Charles’ back and he grips him tightly as he comes, his cock throbbing in Charles' hand, tick, hot come spurting out of it. Charles keeps working his hand up and down, milking every last bit of pleasure from his lover, until Erik falls back onto the bed, boneless and sated.

Charles is still hard as he pulls out of Erik. He pushes Erik’s legs down until he is stretched out on the bed, then crawls up to straddle his hips. He takes his slick, wet cock in his hand and starts to pump it. Erik watches him through heavy lidded eyes, a small smile of approval as he watches Charles’ cock disappear in and out of his fist. Charles is so aroused, his body ready to come, that it doesn’t take long for him to reach orgasm, hips jerking, abdomen clenching, as his brain whites out and he spurts semen onto Erik’s flat stomach. Charles’ head hangs down and suddenly there is no way he can stay kneeling above Erik. He falls forward, letting Erik’s arms catch him, not caring that he’s falling into the mess of come that will now be smeared on both their skin. The moment is perfect. Charles buries his face into Erik’s shoulder, fighting to slow his breathing as he feels Erik’s hand come up to slowly comb through his hair.

“That,” Erik gasps, his voice sounding raw, “was perfect.”

Charles smiles against Erik’s sweat-damp skin. Yes. It was indeed perfect.

 

\--

 

The Blackbird pulls into the bay in the evening light. Erik and Charles are there to greet her. They have spent the afternoon giving each other a bath in the small copper washtub the Captain had brought to them one day, Charles tilting his head back and savoring the feel of Erik’s fingers massaging his scalp with soap. It’s like any other day, except there has been a shift in their relationship. There has always been passion, always been love. None of that has ever been a question for Charles. Now there is contentment.

Charles stands at the edge of the bay watching the sun slip below the horizon in the west. The Blackbird looks majestic in this light and he thinks that part of his heart will always be on that ship. She is the one who saved him. The Blackbird and her crew. She is the first place he started to understand how he was meant to live his life, that it was with Erik by his side. He feels Erik’s fingers touch his wrist lightly followed by a quick swipe across the soft skin there from Erik’s calloused thumb. Charles turns and flashes Erik a smile and receives one in return.

Irene, Raven and Marie join them. Marie is chattering away and Charles can understand maybe half of what she’s saying. Her eyes are bright and she’s excited about what toys might be arriving on the Blackbird. Charles watches as Armando and Alex throw the lines out and Irene runs to catch them, quickly tying the vessel to the rough dock that the locals built who knows how long ago. The gangplank is lowered and the first person to rush down is Jubilee. She throws her arms around the Captain in an unusual show of affection. Alex is next. He goes to Erik first, pulling him into a hug before telling them that Armando is finishing up on the ship.

“We have new crew.” Alex says, glancing over at Raven. “I think you’ll like them, Captain.”

“Not Captain anymore, Alex,” Raven chides softly. “Armando. He’s the captain.”

“Yes, Captain.” Alex says with a boyish smile. There is a sound from behind him, a clearing of a throat and all eyes return to the gangplank. Standing at the top is a tall woman with deep ebony skin. She is sporting a head of hair as white as the snow and is one of the most striking people Charles has ever seen.

“Ororo.” Alex says, waving a hand towards him. “An accomplished thief and an African queen. We picked her up in Morocco. She’s proven her worth a few times on this voyage. We’ve decided she’s our good luck charm. I swear a few times she’s actually calmed a storm.”

“Storm.” Irene says with a warm smile, stepping forward to take Ororo’s hand. “That is what we will call you. Welcome home.”

Home. Charles cannot contain the thrill that runs through him with those words.

The next person to disembark is a colossus of a man, maybe the biggest man Charles has ever seen.

“Peter.” Alex says. “All the way from Russia. He was looking for passage ‘round the cape but decided to stay.”

“Welcome Peter.” Charles says with a smile. And this time it’s his turn. “Welcome home.”

The group makes their way up the hill from the bay and back towards the houses. Charles reaches out and takes Erik’s hand, feeling him startle at the touch, but after a moment he relaxes. Storm glances quickly at their joined hands then glances away, a small smile on her lips. Charles grips Erik’s hand tighter as they walk and pulls him even closer.

“Do you think we’ll ever return?” Charles says, leaning a little onto Erik’s side.

“Return? To Ipswich?” Erik asks, sounding confused.

“No.” Charles laughs. “Never to Ipswich. That life is dead to me. A life in an office, a life without you, a life that my father has chosen? No. I mean do you think we’ll ever return to the sea.”

Charles feels Erik tense. He knows that the memories of what he went through are still fresh. Erik is silent for a long moment, then he starts to relax.

“I don’t know.”

“Have adventures?” Charles continues. “See exotic places? Sail to foreign ports.”

“Maybe.” Erik says as they reach the crest of the hill. They can see Irene and Raven's house just up the path, the windows lit with candles that twinkle in the dim light of the dying day. “Or maybe we'll stay here. There is enough adventure in the world. I am happy here.”

Charles sighs and leans even more into Erik, and his hand comes up to wrap around Erik’s waist.

“Me too, my love. Me too.”

 

**~and they lived happily ever after~**


End file.
